Ghosts And Witches

GHOSTS AND WITCII.ES

SOME: bo(5ks by the same author

A !Iistj).ry of the l^ens
King GSorge V as a Sportsman
Sportir.;^ Adventure
Farming Adventure
Coastal Aclventij^re '

>darshland Adventure
Broadland Adventure
I’he Yeomen of England

The Alodern E^owler
The ^loc-crn Shgoler
Inns of Spurt
A Falcon Ofi St. PauTs
The Dog in Sport
' Life of Sir'AIalcolm Campbell

Life of S-ir Henr\* Sej "ave

%

Kave Don — The*i\IUn
Sport in Itgypt
Rural Rcyolufion

NorvMch and the Br<^ads
etc,, etc.

Here are

tIOSIS

m

WITCHES

J. WENTWIKITB DAT

Illustratf^d by

MICHAEL aVrTOiN

B. T. BATSFOED LTB

First published igj4

Priced and bound in Great Britain by Jarrold and Sons Ltd
London and Norwich for the Publishers

B. T. BATSFORD LTD

4 Fitzhardinge Street ^ PortfOan Square^ London, W.i

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment '

PAGE

ix

List of Illustrations

xi

Introduction

I

CHAHl ER

I THE STRANGLING GHOST

5

The Story of an Ancient Mano/~**Faces Half Guessed, . .

Pale and Long Forgotten'— Mr Ernest Thesiger's Stbry —

Gho5tt\ Sobbing — And the Door tihich Opened — Midnight in
The Henrv VI Room - Some Pdlou goi me by the Throat"

-"He Dte3 Rating Mad"- The Screaming lVo%ian in the
Execi^tion Chamber And the Grey Man nho Vanished —

What happimd in the Spanish Parlour — Blood-Red and Gold

II ;\T K^OF GHOSTS 19

The Qlack Hound of East Anglia — The Drottued Monks of
Sfnnney Abbey — The Galley Pro} in the Churchyard — And the
Black Dog of Llcds Castle — The Shrieking Pits and the
fleadless Qiuen — Hou Jim Mare died at Breccles Hall —

Th( Wolf and the Green Children — Witches on Sark — The
Hand of Glory — And the Detil ^t Barn Hall — The Roman
Centunon of Mersea Bland

III THEY WALK THE BATTLEFIELDS 48

Some True^GhosU of War — The Spectral Ccnait^ Skirmish
at Neuve Eglise — The Man uho sati 4 he Archers Crecy —

And the Dead Subaltern uho came back to repfftrt

IV “A MAN 1 KNOW TOLD ME OF . . 58

The Ghost of Castle Houth—And the Footsteps at Shipton
Manor — The Ghastly Bird of Lincoln's Inn — And the Hand-
some Gallant of Drury Lane Thtpti e- —Sir Jocelyn Lucas and
thi Stain of Blood — The Black Cat of Borley Rectory — And
the House of the Rotting Meat —A Spirit Message from Sir
Henry St grave

V SOME LONDON HAUNTINGS 77

The Ghosts of Holland House- -H'ai Ixidy Diana Rich met
herd hen . Ippantwn- -And hou her Sister encountered her Gun
Ghost — Tin Headless Lord Holland —Ijyrd Camelford's Dud

CONTENTS

G|IAPT£R

VI GHOSTS OF THE ^EST

Mrs, A/0011^’5 Fairifs — Old Whtte Hat of Westward Ho —
The Ghost of PQ§ms Castle^The Appatritton of H M,S Asp
— Devtl on Horseback — The Death Wammg of th> Vaughans
—Tfle l^ptvned Gihst of Plymouth — The Aberystuyth
Memuttd — Legends of West Wales — The Gentle Ghost ^of a
Herefordshtre Cottage

VI WSHOSTS OF the; SOUTH COUNT.RY

The Extraordinary Preserfce*' of Brede Place— Captain
OsiLold FretLen*s Siory — The Dragon of St Leonards Forest
ania Race with the Deitl — Some Sussex WtUhes and HW
Men — The Wagg(vti.r and the Witch-Hare

VIII SOMe EAST ANGLIAiN HAUNT^N(;S

The Ghost of Springfield Plaie in Essex- The If itchm>f ffigh
Easter — When Cat and Mice dine Together The Skeleton
of Milt^/cfihtdl Manor — And the Imps of Suajfham Prior A
^'itch*s Cat — Tht Tragic Ghosts of Southcr\^ WJien Xoah*s
Ark came to Mulbarton-- Tfu Ghosth Coach of H < \bs>urm'-
And the Blue Soti of Saiihdine The H uked Str Barney
Brograte — 'Hie Buried Fiddler— And the Ligl ess Smugglg ’ —
The Manmngton Ghost — The Broun l^id\ The Walptjt
Xyhite Lady

IX ON \VILLS-Q’-'rTlE-WISP \M) CORPSE
CANDLES

* Somt Fenland Wills — A Lad\'$ Fxptrunce near Pittrhortnigh
— Corpse Candles at Longthorpe and in Xorth Kent T hi
Story of **Xeaushidd JacF" I ad\ Cranj^orth and tht
Lantorn ^fen — Syleham Lights It talked h\ Jaik-o'-

Lanterns— The White Donkey of Horning- And hou it passed
through the Churchyard Wall Tht lAidham Serpent Some
Ghosts of the Foreshore- Tht W inged Viking of Cani(\
Island-r*' Shoreland Lights"'- ~A nd some mart Lsst \ W^itc he s
A Tolleshury Poltergeist— The Roudy Ghnt of Rockford
Hall — "'Old Mother Redcap" in the Barn And the Deznl on
Wallasea Island

PAGB

85

114

126

vui

acknowdedgMent

I WISH to express my sincere thanks to the following for their
very kind and generous help in prov^ing me ^ith tnaterial for
this book, or lending me books for reference:

Capt. Oswald *Frewen, Sheephouse, Brede, Sussex; Lt.-Com.
D. le Cronier Chapman, The Old Vicarage, Sketty,* Swansea;
Mrs. E. Bannfeter, 'I’he Cottage, £lackheath, Colchestrt; M™-
H. M. Brown, West Winds, Catherine Road, Woodbridge, Suffolk;
Mrs. R. Brindley, Bold Street, Mo^ Side, Manchester; Miss G.
■Byford, Honeywood Road, Colchester; Mr. C. R. J. BlacSwelf, Esq.,
a'ilkey Road, Coggeshall, Colchester; Mrs. I. G. Brayne, The
(jlebe, Ashill, Th^ord, Norfolk; Mr. J. 6. Bell, Craig Crescent,
CausewaVhead, Stirling, Scotland; Miss E. Beecham, Pool Cottages,
Ince Blundell, Hightuwn, near Liverpool; Captain T. Benyon,
Wroxton llou.sc, Gillsiand Road, Edinburgh; Mis^Likan E. BrftwTi,
London Street, W'orthing, Sussex; H. C. Catterall, Blackpool Road,
Pres^n, Lantashire; Miss G. Qaske, Manor I’^rm, Horseheath,
Cambridgeshire; Mrs. A. G. Chandler, Histon*Road, Cambridge;
Miss B. Chshain, Roscommon Street, Li^'erpool 5; Mrs. R. E. Deere,
Oirner House, llarleston, Stowmarket, Suffolk; Mr. Rushwo/th Eogg,
Castlewood Close, Rathmines, Dubl^p; Mr. P. Oarrod, Guessens
Road, Welwyn Garden City, llertfordshiie; Mr. J. G. S. Gibson,
B Sc., Countv Secondan.' School, fliilm Street, Middleton, Lan-
ca.shire; Col. S. L. Glendenning, D.S.O., T.D., 1 ' S.A., M.I E.E.,
Rosar)' Road, 'I'horpc Hamlet, Norwich; Miss V 1 . Humphrey,
Old NIarket, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; Mr. A. A.<C. 1 ledges. F.L.A.,
Borough Librarian, Central library’. Hall Quay, Great Yarmouth;
Mrs. !•'. Hargreaves, White Rock Street, Liverpool 6; Mr. W. P. Hills,
West Fen Road, Ely, Cambridgeshire; Mrs. M. S. Jones, Skenywore,
Bryn-Pydew, Llandudno Junction, Caernarvonshire; Mr. L.
Jones, Nab Hill Cottage, Leek, Staffordshire; Mr. D. Raymond
lajvcday, (Jordon Road, Melton Constable, Norfolk; Mr. S. W.
T.amb, Colomb Road. (Jorlcston, Great T.irmouth; Mr. J. E. Lowe,
Wardlow Street, Bcswiclt, Manchester 11; ^fr. H. A. I>ee, Bronfay,
Beacon Road, Seaford, Sussex; Mr. W. Moore, Cloville ftall. West
HanningHeld, Essex; Mr. W. Markall, Ia)ngstone Crescent,
Frecheville* Sheffield 12; Mr. AJaurice O. Mottram, Three Owls,
Holt Road, Cromer; Mr. D. J. M. Peregrine, Oaklands, Cardigan;

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMEIST-

^r. G. A. Paufl, Pretolou, Monmouth Road, D<irchc8ter, Dorset;
Mrs. A. L. Pittaway, Forge ifow, Abcrtillery, Monniouthsiiire;
Mrs. Mungo ^ark^ Stomps, Great Canfield, Dunmow; Mr. Thomas
Ridley, Orchard Placei Polegate,»S.ussex; Miss P. Kam, Clare Road,
Cambridge;. Mr.^G. N. S^eld, North Parade, llorsham, Sussex;
Mr. A. Taylor,* The Tiled House, Panton Street) Cambridge;
Dr. Jamieson, late of The Canons, Thetford, I^orfolk; The late
Mr.. Rob^ Fuller, Spinney Abbey, Wicken, Cambridgeshire;
Mr. T./y. Welsh, Chain Wa^, Lozells, Birmingham 19; Mrs. A.
Whalley, Yoih Street, Blackburn, Lancashire; Mr. J. M. WatJdns,
Great House, Llantilio f*erth»ley, near Abergavenny, Monmouth-
shire; ^(Ir.*T. Morley, Holywell Row, Suffolk; Miss E. W.
Ward Russell, Lansdot^e Grove, Bare, Morecambe, Lancashire; Mrs,
L. Yotmgman, ‘'Rougelhont”, Thom Park Te^ce, Mannamead,
Plymouth.

J. WF.NTWORTH-l)\y

X

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

I HE

BLACK HOUND • ?

•

Frontispiece

THE

JUSTICE ROOM

•

*3

THE

HAND OF GLORY

• 39

•

•

•the

SPECTRA I CAVALRY *.

•

•

5 *

BIRD

ELEMEMAL .

65

•

GHOSTS OF HOLLAND PARK

•

.• 81

THE

WHITE CAVALIER

109

THF DRAT )N OF ST. LEONARDS FOREST II9

SIR BARNtY BRCWRAVE AND THE DLWL I39

Tilt GHOST or A VIKING J63

Introduction

W llA'r a gallimaufry of ghosts and ihedievalism is in
this old Suffolk forest of ‘.recs more ancient than
time --and for that matter, what a gallimaufry' of ghosts is
about us wherever we walk* in tfie oljder parts of Encland.
That is, of course, if we have the^<?nse to hear and see a little
further than our material noses.”

It is not so many years since liiafc recondit scholar with
the gay wit and embracing Christianit;f. Jig late Dr.
Montague Rendall, one-time Headmaster of Winchester,
made that remark to me as we walked together on an
enchanted September afternoon of sunlight and golden
silence, in that Hans Andersen wood of the old gods, Staver-
ton Forest, wliich lies at the door of the grey inagnificence of
the old ^jatehoust of Butley Priori on the Suffolk coast,
where “Monty” Renflall lived the last'happy years of his
life in classic peace.

That old and haunted wood oi ancient trees was a place
sacred before Christ walked ^n Galilee, a place of which I

I

INTRODUCTION

have written 'elsewhere “sojbld that its memories are for-
gotten, its^old gods blown whispers down the aisles of an
old^ Britain that died when the Romans came”

And amid that* mysticism* of old trees . so grotesquely
beautiful thaj they a*e almost frightening, we talked of
ghosts and the strange and ancient beliefs that are part of
the weft of English history — an unearthly pattern woven,
sometimfes enchantingly and sometimes forbiddingly, into
that immemorial background of inherited traditions whi^ h is
the heritage of the countryside, the ultimate mother of all
men, whether of town or village.

So, in this book,*I have, collected together a gallimaufry
of ghosts and a web of witches. For the most part they
are stories heard at first hand, or stories sent tQ me in reply
to letters which I wrote to many provincial newspapers.
Indeed, the replies to my letters would have filled not one
book, but two,,and the strange thing is that al], or most of
them, bore the undeniable stamp of authenticity. The writers
clearly and hon^tly believed the truth, or at any ratt: half the
truth, of the things they had seen or the tales they had heard.

Thaf, perhaps, is how most of us regard ghost stories. We
hesitate to believe thejn wliolehtartedly — but \Ve never hesi-
tate to listen or to retail the tales we are told. I do not pre-
tend to be a spiritualist. I dabble in no demonology and*
despise the diseased minds which grope after the Black
Arts. But.thertf is a fascination about the legends of the
countryside which is undeniable, irresistible, and probably
indestructible.

I confess that I have sat up hopefully, on dark nights and
moonlight nights, in haunted houses, old and new. I have
walked through spectral woods when owls hooted and bats
flew. I have been on desolate seaward marshes at midnight,
where the corpse tandles glow and 'have waded through
noisome* fens where bitterns boomed and Wills-o’-the-Wisp
flit their lambent course. But, with the exception of that one
extraordinary war-time visiontof a ghostly cavalry skirmish,

2

INTRODUCTION

to the truth of which I would^ffirm naost sol^nly, I have,
seen no ghosts.

True, no power would have coaxed me upstairs to-'the
dark upper roocns of Borley RecJtory, and’there are rooms in
other houses in which I would not sleep. Byt there actual
experience ends. For the rest, this book is a collection ol
tales told and tales collected, many at first hand and others
from sources a^ sound as any from which a ghost may |pring.
If i^ sends you to bed with no worse than a delicious shiver
and provokes no more ill than the memory of a forgotten
^egend told as childhood truth, it will have sei^’ed its enter-
taining purpose.

J. WENTWORTH DAY.

3

CHAPTER I

The Strangliiig Ghost

T he house sits, like a very old lady sunning herself, amid
lilies and lavender within a rahipart of yew hedges set
in a flat green park, laced with shining brooks, against a
fapestry of ancient woods. It is an old house. For it* was
built in the first half of the fifteenth ofntury, r the reign of
Henry VI, when the feudal power of the bartm had neared
its convulsive climax. The oaken timbers of its skeleton were
driven into the earth half a centun,' before Columbus sailed
to discover America. They were cut from the forest oaks
that surround the house, oaks which were seedlings, like
enough, when William Rufus hunted tlje tall deer through its
parkland glades.

An astute courtier of*Henr>' VI began t® build this ancient
house within its forest manor in 1442 and finished it in 1466.
He put in the magnificent display oi nineteen tall windows of
heraldic glass, probably the fip^st domestic glass of its kind

5

C.A.W.— a

THE STRANGLING GHOST

in the countiy. Aft^ the collier’s family came another, and
then, in 1587, my ancestor. Doctor William Day, twelfth
Provost of Eton, Dean of Windsor, and later Bishop of
Winchester, bought it. The jirst Elizabeth; had Bishop Day
in mind for the Archbishopric of Canterbury, but he died too
soon. His son, William, who lived on in the, old house,
married Helen Wentworth, daughter of Paul Wentworth,
M.p., of Burnham Abbey, Bucks., son of Sir Nicholas Went-
worth, Chief Porter of Calais and one of the ^eat Wentworth
family which held several hundred manors in York*shire,
Essex, Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire.

The Days remained in their oaken house until 1801 or
thereabouts^ 214 years of continuous famjly history in one of
the loveliest examples of a fifteenth-century manor-house
left in England.

’Then, by a' fantastic turn of fortune, the old house, which
had fallen on evil days, a place of rats and bats, of dust and
dim cobwebs, was bought some fifty years ago by a baronet
who was a notable antiquarian, a gieat connoisseur of fine
armour and old furniture, and a good sportsman. His wife
was a descendant of the Plantagenet courtier who built this
“Oaken Place” more than five hundred years ago. Thus, in
fantastic fashion, the old house came back to descendants
of its creator.

Now this old house, which has all the ancient bloom of a
missal, is no great mansion. It is an old manor-house of a
very ancient and comfortable^ sort, the house-place of a
, knight or squire. Its windows are diamond-paned and mul-
lioned; its walls of herring-bone brick and hewn oak are
Rushed with the warmth of forgotten summers. The colour
ebbs and flows on the four great peaked eaves of the roof
like lights on water: pow old rose, then plum-purple, shading
into amber, a delicacy of merged and flowing colours, with
the wink of glass and the blush of old brick.

And t^hen you go in at the front door, huge and dark grey,
heavily studded with nails and banded from side’to side by

THE GREAT HALL

great iron hinges, you step into ^Jie Grea# Hall, forty-one feet
long and thirty-six feet high from floor to roof-tree. The
walls are hung with the tom banners of forgotten tattles, the
bright tapestrieslof vanished bowers. The Kght filters through
high windows blazoned with the coats^f arms of Plantagenet
kings, knights, and barons. Two knights in^full fighting
armour and a man-at-arms in chain-mail gleam like silver
ghosts in the rich dusk. The wide hearth, above which rises
a grQat stone ctimney-piece in which are still faintly flicked
the initials of Yorkist men-at-arms«who«lept huddled on^ne
l^oor when the Wars of the Roses swept the land, is creamy
with the ashes of a wood fire that smoillders, year in, year
out. The whole heuse, when one entered, was scented with
wood-smoke.

If you step out of the Great Hall, silvery with the gleam
of swo’^cl .;r.d lance gorget and helm, hor^e-armoui;^ahd
demi-suits, i^s panelled walls golden in the rich half-light
fronfthose' tall and coloured wkicfows, you walk, beneath the
carved scseens, into a broad corridor that eflcloses the little
inner courtyard round which the house is built. There is a
guard-room on the left where men, armed and alert, did
their daily sentry-go when ‘the sixth Henry was on the
throne.

Above the guard-room is the fteniy' VI Room, in w^ch,
they say, the monarch slept, for ihu builder this house
was a courtier high in royal favour. It is, lik»thi- other bed-
rooms, oak-panelled from tfloor to ceiling, a high room,
spanned from side to side, far up, by a great beam which
springs from wall to wall. And in this room stands a four-
poster bed, huge and oaken, carved wuth the anns of
Catherine of Aragon. The furniture is all of a piece, as
indeed is most of the furnishing in tha* ancient house.

So that if you went^o bed in the Henfy VI Room or, for
that matter, in the Queen Elizabeth Room,* in which that,
peripatetic monarch did actually s -ep, you clambered into
a vast open bed beneath a ca5\'ed canopy resplendent with

7

THE STRANGLING GHOST

Tudor roses and lojienges, |with hangings that drew to on
either side^ until you were, in fact and feeling, enclosed in a
little room within a room. On the floor, in the days when I
dwelt there, were rush mat»of the s6rt that tjie Tudors knew.
By the bedside was ap oaken manchet, a little cupboard in
*^which, four centuries ago, they kept a thumb-piece of bread
and cheese and a little flagon of wine lest a guest should
wake h6ngry in the night. When you lived or stayed in that
house j ou lived with the living past.

Do you wonder that when I first came to it in the rich
glow of a winter sunset that lit the old trees in the park witj)
flames of red-gold and turned the woods steel-blue and saw
the face of, this old house, dreaming in,.thc last level rays
under a sky of apple-green and amber, its windows winking
with a thousand points of light, that I felt a sense of being
witghed? Th^lre stood ‘the house, secret and only half seen,
a chimney slim against the sky, the great eaves cocked like
sun-bonnets, a mullioned Vindow winking like a diamond,
the old strange* smell of wood-smoke, acrid in the dusk. A
cat-owl mewed from an arrow-slit in the curtain-wall. And
a brown owl answered him from a stag-headed oak out in the
park, where wild duck qdacked and spattered in the running
brook.

Aiid the house stood there, dark and quietly warm, watch-
ing one. There were \vindows that showed no lights, whose
little diamond fianes winked back no welcome from the last
watery beam of the winter sun.. They held secrets, very old
|md family things. There were faces, half guessed behind
those upper windows of empty chambers, faces of young
girls, pale and gone and long-forgotten, like flowers whose
scent lingers ghostly; faces of young men killed in wars
whose clangour is loag stilled, and of grave men and old
women, once wise «nd now dust, all ftf them part of the life
.and structure of this old house which was their home.

And as one stepped through the great oaken porch, under
the screens and into that Grg^t Hall with the sharp scent of

8

THE WATCHING EYES

half-burned logs, the haunting smell qf wood* polished and
of wood burned, of old tapestries full of dust and of polished
armour, there came again the sense, acute and overpowering,
of watching eyfes — eyes' that decked down from the high
gallery where once the minstrels pl^y id and the serving-
maids peeped shyly upon the great ones at mlat below.

There is often this sense of bygone presence, of watching
eyes, usually very kmdly and merely curious eyeS, in bid
houses. The impress of their personalities is left strongly. It
is a something inexpressible, ineluctable, undefinable, yet it
there. The merely material are insensitive to it. Some,
perhaps, feel it, but since their canon? are orthodox, they
deny it. Nevertheless, it is a place of very old memories,
and, I would,say, of gentle ghosts.

That, however, has not been the experience of at least two
people 'aI... have stayed there. Mr. Ernest* Thesigeju, the
distinguished actor and a member of the gifted family which
produced both a Lord High Chancellor anti a Viceroy of
India within living memory, apparently spifent an unhappy
night in the h'luse.

In his book of memoirs, Practically True, he saysr

Wherever we went we were put-up by the kind inhabitants of
the town in which we were to perform, and once the company
passed an interesting but miserable , night at he beautiful
fourteenth-century place, Manor, which^is .he most un-

doubtedly haunted house I h^ve ever slept — or attempted to sleep
— in. The door of my room had a hea\y iron latch w'hich I care-
fully closed, but no sooner was I in bed than I heard a ‘‘clip-clop^
of the latch, and the door swung slowly open. I got out of bed and
examined the latch — lock there was none — and once more shut
the door, taking special c.ire to see thkt the latch was securely
fastened. But the mojpent I had put out the light I heard the
same “clip-clop”, and tbc door again opened. This time I was
far too much alarmed to get out of bed, and, \)urying my head
under tlje bed-clothes, attempted to oieep. Luckily my room was
the dressing-room of a larger aoom, which was occupied by my

9

THE STRANGLING GHOST

cousin, Stephen Po\^, an ^cellent amateur with whom I fre-
quently acted, and I found to my relief that he was as nervous as
I was, so' we kept the communicating-door between our rooms
open all night, to opr mutual comfort
The next morning we found that everyone else in the house,
with the exertion of foe hostess, who was presumably hardened
to ghosts, had been kept awake by mysterious sounds. One girl
told n\e that the occupant of the room next to hers had been
sobh’ng all night, but when we made inquiries U'c learnt that the
room in question was unoccupied. . . .

That, however, was mild compared with the experienoe o£
the man who came to stay as my guest while my wife and I
were living there for some months, in 194c, as guests of the
then owner.

Now, since this is a ghost tale, let us consider the character
of ‘tlie man* who said tHat he suffered the greatest fright of
his life from a ghost within that house. He is now dead, but
I am afraid I can say little' that is good about hirii. Since I
had business to'do with him, it was necessary to invite him
for a week-end. I warned my host that my visitor was no
very pleasant personality. His wise old eyes looked at me
with a queer, sardonic twinkle. •

“Ah; well,” he remarked^, “as you say that he hates all old
things, I think we’ll put him to sleep in the Henry VI
Room.” I wondered slightly at the reason for his quiet
chuckle, since I had not heard all the legends of the house.

My guest arrived late one evening with a brand-new
double gun-case and a fat and fluffy golden retriever, and
clad in a shooting suit of effulgent checks. His startled gaze
took in armour and bannerets, wood ash and rush mats,
candle-gloom and the. figure of my host, in one sweeping
glance of incredulous scorn.

After dinner, at which he expounded his wealth, expanded
on his motofSfeafs and extolled his prowess at tame pheasants,
he and I retired to a little panelled parlour, where we settled
our business. Then, in a repk of Eg5rptian cigarettes, he

10

“some fellow got me by the throat”

remarked with infinite condesijension:^ “Well,* you may like,
this queer old place, but give me central heating, concealed
lighting, and a damn good bar!” And upon this note he
retired to bed.

Night and the cry of owls descencjjpd upon the old house.
The lights went out. At some time in the^mall hours I
heard, from the Henry VI Room, a crash and a heavy thud.
The lights went on in my guest’s windows. They stayed on.
At breakfast tflere descended a pale and slightly hollow-eyed
magnate with a gun-metal complvcioniand an air of uneasy
resentment. He announced brusquely that he was leaving
immediately.

“But I hoped jthat we were going to offer, you a da)r’8
shooting,” lyy host remarked gently. “We’ve still got a fair
stock of wild pheasants, in spite of too jnany foxes and
carrion crows.”

“No, thank you,” my guest snapped. “I’ve got a big day
on in Hamp*shire. They rear ’^enl by the cartload there. It’s
a real shqpt.” A little dnkind, I thought.

I saw him off at the front door after our host had wished
him well and wandered off to his library. There nty guest
rounded on me savagely.

“What d’you mean, asking me to stay in this raf-ridden
old ruin?” he snapped. “Never igain! Do you know, some-
thing tried to throttle me last night!, I’d barely got to sleep
when some fellow got me by the throat and tried to strangle
me. I hit out, smashed the ,water bottle to bits, and knocked
that old wooden bread cupboard, that — manchet, did you caU
it? — over. There wasn’t a soul in the room, but I could
hardly get my breath. I switched the lights on and left ’em
on. The damn place is haunted. It’g not fit for a civilised
man to live in. I’m off!”

“A queer fellow, your guest,” my host remarked, when I
joined him a few minutes later. “Not at all'nice mannered.
I’m glad you warned me about him. He looked as if he
hadn’t sldpt very well.”

II

THE STRANGLING GHOST

“He didn’t,'’ I rep^ed. “I|e said that something or some-
body tried ^o strangle him during the night.”

“Ah! They would!” he remarked, with that quietly sar-
donic smile which •! had sefcn. earlier. “YouJsee, the Henry
Room was the Justice Jloom in the old days. They used to
fiang the bad ^1-doers from that great beam! It stHl seems to
work, though it’s many years since anyone fe!t it. I once had
a fellow ‘staying here, a charming person who had married a
really v icked woman. They, slept in that room for a \Yeek
without any trouble. 'But when he had to spend one night in
London and she was left here alone, she woke up just after
midnight, screaming her head off, and rushed into my wife’s
room saying fhat someone had tried to strangle her! She left
that day. We weren’t sorry. We liked her husband — and I
often wondered if the fright did do her any lasting
godd» It niighi even improve your peculiar friend — but I
doubt it!”

A week later a very old la'dj/^from the village, nearly ninety
years of age, cafne up to the manor-house. She sat in the
Great Hall with me and ran over her memories of the far-
off days when her mother was serving-maid to the farmers
who followed my ancestors in possession of the place.

“They stored .the potatoes and the sacks of corn in this
Great Hall, sir,” she lamented, “and the rats ran about as big
as puppy dogs. Half the rooms were empty, but that room
up there”— she pointed up to the Henry VI Chamber — “was
always kept boarded up. We children were told not to dare
go near it. There was something in there that would throttle
yer!

“They did say that in the old days it was always called
the Dungeon, because. they used to hang the bad people in
there. This house, baing built on the flat so close to the
water, they couldn’t dig down and make a dungeon, so they
hung ’em up!stairs. We children peeked through the chinks
in the boards many a time and we alius reckoned there was
some great big black old thii^g in there with starey eyes —

12

The Justife Room

THE GREY MAN

but, lorl I wouldn’t go in that aroom tljen or now, not for $
pension.”

Thus the memory of the medieval Justice Room ling^ed
on in village legend, as indeed it does to this day.

Three days after the midnight “visi^tion” in the Henry VI
Chamber, 4 spent a couple of nights away fi^ the house,
shooting. My wife was left alone with our aged host; his
companion-housekeeper, an educated woman; her |oldier
son^home on llave from the army, and Sparke, the butler, a
matter-of-fact fellow about whose aars a dozen goblins might
have buzzed with impunity. Creaks and squeaks never
bothered him. Soon after dinner on the* first night after my
departure a chill draught blew through the Great Hall, and
the door of tjie library in which the four of them were sitting
blew ope’^ It opened on to the glazed cloisters or corridor
which encircle the inner courtyard.

The figure of a man, grey and distinct, passed the door
in the corridor. Thinking it was fhe butler, tfie housekeeper
called out; “Sparke!”

There was no reply. She walked to the door and looked
along the corridor. The figure was just turning the ’comer.
She called again. There was no answer. Her son ran after
the figure. When he reached the Qomer of the corridor ijt had
Vanished.

Then he went in the kitchen. Sparke, th butler, was
sitting there, smoking his pipe, reading in? evening
paper. He said that he had not moved since dinner was
cleared.

Thoroughly alarmed now, the two women, the butler, and
the soldier son toured the house armed with a shotgun, a
revolver, and the fire-irons. They did not tell our host, who
was dozing by the library fire. Not a^ thing nor a soul did
they find. Nothing had been stolen. The only odd fact was
that the great outer door, which Sparke swflre th^i |ie had*
locked and barred as usual, was u.docked, its massive iron
bars hanging inert from their s^iplcs.

15

THE STRANGLING GHOST

Then they rang ujj the police. Police arrivetl, searched the
house and, found nothing. Not even a footprint. Yet two
grcswn-up pet^le swear to this day that they saw the very
solid figute of a ^grey mdh walk 'down t&e corridor and
.vanish. Spaike stuck^to it that he barred and bolted the
outer door, tire only way in. What do you make of that? The
odd thing is that the grey figure had never been seen before
or sin^r

As for my flambo3rant friend, the victim o^ the Strangling
Ghost, it is a ciuiotis fact that although an exceptionally
strong man in early middle age, he died raving mad within a
year or so, clutching at his throat and “seeing things”. This
unhappy demise may have been due nqt so much to the
attention of the Strangler as to the fact that he drank his way
relentlessly through a case or more of whisky in the course
of *a long Wtek^end.

Now, in justice to the house, let me say thajt, although I
have sat up in the Great Hall many a time until well after
midnight and walked the cloisters and the creaking^ corridors
upstairs in the small hours, I have never seen there a ghost
or the Suspicion of one. There was always, as I have said,
the sense that one was being watched by the friendly eyes of
those^ldng dead; the sense, too, of a warm companionship, an
ancestral friendliness from past ages. But that is an atmo-*
sphere one finds in many old houses, particularly those where
long famijy ro^ts have continued. It is part of the spiritual
atmosphere of the house, sonae part of the colour and
continuity of a man’s own background.

But one odd and quite inexplicable set of circumstances
did happen to me personally. There was a little room called
the Spanish Parlour, a room full of early pieces of furniture
with a luminous picture, a Luini, on the wall, and a view
through diamond-paned windows into the garden of yews
•and lijies aud*beyond them, to the flat park where cattle
moved in stately peace and the woods stood, winter-blue, in
the far distance.

i6

THE ROOM OF BLOOD AND GOLD

That room was panelled in those day^ from door to ceiling
in ancient crimson leather stamped with gold, {t was very
rare and valuable, that leather of blood and gold which had
come four cenQuies agb, th^r ^d, from the hmise of the
Spanish Governor of Mexico City i^ the days when Spain
held nearly all Central America in the bloody firall of perse-
cution and torture.

Now you would have said that to work in suclf a room
with the sunltght striking through the windows afid the
pheasants crowing in the park andaio sound anywhere in the
olckhouse 111 the slow ticking of a clock, the grunt of a dog
dreaming in iiont of the fire, that here'was the ideal place
in which to writer bo< .v. And on that task I jvas engaged
one day in ^e Spanish Parlour with my private secretary,
an old family friend of many years standing. We had never,
I think, had a cross word in twenty years.

But on this day of which I speak, no sooner had we settled
down to w'ork ’ i the Spanish.PSrlour than my ideas dried
up, the tjyewr* :r jamfned up, and our tem^Sers flared up.

I found it quite impossible to concentrate on anything.
The typewTiter, dumb, but mechanically perfect, •almost
seized up. My secretary exclaimefl pettishly: “I can’t work
in this room. I won't work in this poom! It’s nearly llriving
bie mad — why, I really do belieVe that if it w'’^ on a top
floor I should feel like jumping out ot.the windo\. Let’s get
out of it.”

We got out. We removed to another room, barer room
with no fire, no lovely Luini to beguile the eye, no connois-
seur’s pieces on which to sit, and instead of a view over the
park, a vision of the hen-run.

Btit the ideas flowed. The typewriter started like a two-
year-old. I'he secrrt-arial temper disseh’ed into a seraphic
smile — and work flowed easily, phrass and sentence no
longer slipped from the grasp.

Now, how do you account for thi* ' Later that day, I was
told that fto one could ever sit /or any time, with ease, in the

17

THE STRANGLING GHOST

Spanish Parlour. It^was seldom or never use'd, although it
was one of the better rooms on the ground floor with an
enchanting view. But always there was the sense of oppres-
sion, of frustration^ of acutft mental'agony. And, be it noted,
that overmastering seijpe had never been known in the room
until the walls were covered with the blazonry of Spanish
leather, blood-red and gold, from the cruel and bloody days
of Spaiflsh magnificence and torture in Mexico City when
Philip* of Spain and the Inquisition were at tfle peak of their
devilish power.

This I know, that if ever by a heaven-sent chance shat
ancient family hom€ was to return to me, I would sleep with-
out fear in the chamber of Henry VI, as J have slept many
a night in Queen Elizabeth’s room where the Ji5oards creak
and the great latched door opens sometimes of its own accord
witlL a ghwtl 3 f “whee-ee”, but there should be no Spanish
leather on the walls and the Spanish Parlour would take a
new name ancf return to ifs Plantagenet simplicity of oaken
walls.

i8

CHAPTER M

Talk of Ghosts

W E sat round the fire by candlelight. Outside the wind
roared in the bare tneeg, and pale' stars winked
remotely.^ Within, we* had no wireless, no electric light or
gas, no telephone, and no central hearing — merely the leaping
flames of a wood and peat fire in a fireplace twelve fCet wide
and five feet high.

A fire which flickered on the oakon beams and pavtd floor
•of that five-hundred-year-old hotise which is my old home,
set on a bleak ridge above the froze.i, flooded b' • s. Outside,
the wild geese bayed like hounds beneath t^e stirs. Shock-
headed trees played a wincj-song above the thatched roof.
And, at the back of the ancient pastures, full of owl-haunted,
hollotv trees, lay the brown and reedy wilderness of Wicken
Fen, where the bittern booms on nights of spring.

And on such a winter night, the wind howling, the flood
waters out on all the shining fens, and wild geese clanging
in the night, we tallxdof ghosts.

It was a fit time and place while chestnuts were roasted
and hot punch went round. Outsiv the wind roared in the
bare trees’. Pale stars winked remotely at a white and silent

19

TALK OF GHOST'S

world. And lance it was Christinas, we talkW of ghostly
thriilb and^ emdiantments, as English people have told at
Chrit^mas rince time began. And from that talk this book
began.

Now I doubt if the^modem Londoner can talk with ease
or pleasure of ghosts when he sits in a minute Toom in a
centrally-heated flat, gazing into a two-bar electric fire and
listening to the simian ineptitudes of a “white nigger”
crooner, drowning his Cockney accent in the*East Side gib-
berish of New York.

But in old houses, in halls and farms, and inns that sit>by
black woods, and Cottages which lurk in lanes, ghosts are
still in season from Christmas until th^ graves open on
Twelfth Night and swallow the walking dead.

You see, we believe in ghosts in East Anglia — or, if we do
not iidmimhaf we believe in them, we have a hair-raising
collection of them. And why not.? Is it not the old land of
Thor and Odin, of Freya’ and St, Guthlac, of Fenris^he
Wolf and St. Ingulph — of old gods and old saints^ of Saxon
and Dane, a land of once-wild fens and steaming meres, of
bare arid windy heaths and dark woods that run down to
the lonely, shining sea? 'f'hose-old fens were a very lurking
place <Jf demons ^and swart devils, of Wills-o’-the-Wisp
and Black Dogs. And stilFtoday there is a North Sea magic'
in the night wind, the whisper of witch-wings under the
stars.

It was on just such a winter night of wind in bare branches
rfhat I set out to walk from Upware, that lonely hamlet on
the banks of the Cam, by way of Spinney Bank, which runs
between the sighing reeds and brown waters of Wicken Fen
and the peewit-haunted cattle marshes of Spinney Abbey. I
had a gun and a dog« I have walked that bank a thousand
times in the last forty years, in red*winter dawns and on
misty fen nightS;

We bad been shooting snipe and duck all day on the wild
undrained levels of Adventuiiers’ Fen. The mood was just

“that owd black dog”

coming up, red round. It is the last place in all England
where.the swamps and reed-beds, pools'and shinipg water-
ways of “the old Fen” are still much as they were when Hcre-
ward, the last oftthe SaTfons, thr^ back the armies of the
Conqueror and burned them and their boats in the reeds on
Aldreth CaOseway. And in the inn wRich sits on the river
bank beneath great willows, I said casually: “Well, who’s
coming home by the bank?”

Nqt a man of that rough crew of turf-diggers, sedge-
cutters, and dyke-dydlers who sat 'by the turf fire in the
sanded, red-curtained parlour of the “Five Miles from Any-
where — No Hurry”, would take the short cut by the bank
that would have sa^ed a mile on the road home.

“That owd. Black Dog run there o’ nights, master,” said
Jake Bar^^'ii, ^pitting int^o the white ash of the turf fire. “Do*
ye goo, he’ll hev ye as sure as harvest. I ’ouldn’t ^alk tJiSt
owd bank, not^if I had to goo to Hanover.”*

“Ne me yet nayther,” chimed»in two or three. “Yew recol-
lect what happe-icd to one young woman. She up and died
arter that owd Dog runned her!”

“Well, I’m going,” says I. “Are ^’ou coming, Fred.^ Your
way lies my way, and it’ll save»you half a mile.”

Fred shied like a horse.

“No, sir! No, sir! Yew ’on’t ketch me on that there bank
not tonight ne yit any other night, i k>uldn't go theer not
for the King o’ England! Ah! Yew' may he^j thai CTet owd
gun but if we’d got machine guns an’ tin hats, I ’ouldn’t goo.
An’ ef yew goo, the owd Dog’ll hev ye, sure as harvest.”

Fred spoke with finality. I have known him since w’e w’ere
both boys. He was my constant companion on days in the
Fen. He could walk the ordinary mao off his Lgs, jump a
dyke like a gieyhound, drink a quart, fight anyone. But he
was scared — and admitted it.

’ “Do” IS East Anglian for "if”.

* “Go to Hanover” in the Fens expresses ai nptin^ the impossibie^ It is a
throwback to early Georgian days when the House of Hanover came to
the throne.

aA.W.— 3

21

TALK OF GHOSTS

Now a word a^ut Spinney, its history and ghosts, of
which th^ Black iJog is not least. Until 1952 my friend,
Robert Fuller, that excellent and wise farmer, lived at
Spinney and owned its land, but in* the last<:entury its tenant
was one Golding, a gpntleman-farmer. He rented the house
and lands from my cousin. Miss Mary Hatch. Golding was
ap eccentric and a daredevil. He once drove a horse up the
oaken 'stairs at Spinney to the first-fioor landing, and then
tried to get it dowp again. A collection of hard-siding
farmers had betted himrthat the feat was impossible.

It seemed so. Golding stamped, swore, and cracked his
whip. The horse neighed, snorted, and kicked the banisters
to blazes. Finally it reared and charged headlong down the
stairs, slipped at the bottom, skidded among the scared
guests, scattering them like chickens, and bolted straight out
of Ahe o^n front door. The hoof-marks can still be seen on
the stairs.

Spinney has several ghosts. No place is better fitteTl for
them. Founded by Lady Mary Bassingbourne, “of the
Wykes”, in the twelfth or thirteenth century, it was a lonely
outpok of the Augustinian Canons, standing grey and grim,
enisled amid reedy leagues of fen and mere. A bare wind-
twisted belt of sqrubbyfirs was all that protected it from the
wild nor’-easters that howled down on the wings of the frost
and battered its doom, rattled its windows, and beat flat the
winter reeds ii\the great fish-stews.

They lived a good life, those old monks — asceticism offset
by old wine and the best that the Fen netsmen and decoy-
men could bring as tribute. It was too good to last. When
Henry VIII fell upon them Spinney suffered with the rest.
That is how the firsUghosts began their earthly span.

The legend is thkt when Henry’s men-at-arms marched
on Spinney, the monks fled in terrof down the subterranean
passage .whicft is supposed to connect the Abbey with Denny
Abbey, five miles across the fens, on the other side of the
Cam. They took with them the plate and all else moveable

22

THE SINGING GHOSTS

of value. Half-way down the tunnel th|y met the monks of
Denny, who also had been turned out by Henry’s ruffians.

They decided that it were Ij^ter to yield up the holy
treasures and behaved than perish and be glorified. So they
trotted back to Spinney. There th#y found the Abbey
wrecked and cast down, and tons of debris over the door to
the outer world. The same had happened at Denny.

Thus the mpnks expiated their carnal backslidings by
dying in that nightmare tunnel. Some of my family tried to
explore the tunnel fifty years or more ago, but it was full of
water and noisome gases.

In 1941, when 1 set out on horseback to ride a thousand
miles through East* Anglia, I came across two sets of singing
ghosts. The first was at Spinney Abbey where, said Robert
Fuller, “One morning at breakfast on Low Sund^, a few
years agu, we heard ghostly singing out in the stack-yard,
fourteen feet above the ground. It was clear as a bell. In
fact, I thought at first ft was tBe wireless. But no — there it
was, pure and sweet, all in Latin, a dozen feet up in the air —
just where the old Chapel of the Abbey used to stand. What
do you make of that?”

I made as much — or as little — as I did of it when, a week
Ijater, at that sweet, bright old hoi^eln Thetford called The
Canons, my host, Dr. Jameson, pointing out of the window
to the gaunt, silvery grey ruins of tne great Cl pel of the
Priory of the Holy Sepulchre, at whose foot lies buried all
that is left of the once-mighty Hugh Bigod, said:

“One Sunday morning in May 1937, we heard distinct
singing in Latin in that roofless chapel, a whole choir singing
for half an hour. Then the sound of a man’s feet walking
slowly up the stone aisle — it’s all grass* now, anyway — and a
man’s voice reading prayers in Latin. It was so clear that I
almost heard every wo^d. How do you account for that?”

Apart from singing, the monks of Spinney seem, ro have
contented themselves with tapping a\. midnight on the under-
side of the bricked-over entrance to the tunnel, which is in

*3

TALK OF GHOSTS

the cellars — ^the only remaining portion of the original build-
ing. Robert Fuller told me some years ago that the banging
was so loud one night tjgat neither he nor his wife could
sleep. At other tifhes footsteps have been h^ard and horrible
sliding, serpentine rustles, as of gigantic snakes slipping
about on the brick steps.

. Watpr fills the tunnel to within a few steps of the top. It
is extremely probable that the river has br||>ken in at some
time and flooded the passage. This belief has given rkc to
stories that the tunnel* is inhabited by great eels, which
accounts possibly for the “slippery ghosts”.

Whether there ate eels or not is .more than I can say, and
the length of the tunnel is a moot pointf for although there
is undeniably a similar entrance at Denny, to «a presumably
similar mnnel, it seems inconceivable that the rude engineers
of the Middle Ages should have been able to bore for five
miles beneath a quaking bog of mud and water, with the bed
of the Cam as an additional obstacle.. It is hard to see, more-
over, why two such obscure and unimportant monastic cells
— neither was truly an abbey — should have been of such
importance as to warrant so great an expenditure of money
and labour.

Against this, how'evet, piust be set the fact that workmerj
who were “dydling out” a dyke on the fens about a mile from
Spinney some thirty»or more years ago, found the arched
brick roof of a tunnel which seemed to run in a straight line
between the two abbeys. The men got down to gault before
they struck the roof, so it is just possible that the tunnel
might have been driven through the sticky tenacious gault
with little fear of inundation from the marshes above. Gault
is impervious to water. But to hie back to our ghostly Dog.

“What are you sesfred of, Fred? Do you think you’ll find a
dead monk in the dkeh?” I asked.

“Nq, J ainT skeered of no monkses. That’s the Dog. He
run along that bank o’ nights, big as a calf, Master Went-
worth, black as night, wi’ eyes that glower at you like bike

24

“eyes red as blood”

lamps! Do he see you you’ll up and die. There ain’t a man
living what can see that owd Dog and lA^e. Do he»does, he’ll
goo scatty.”

“But my father went along this bank scores of nights after
duck, Fred. He said the best place fof flight was by the old
black mill.’’

“Dessay he did, but he niver seed the Dog. Do he’d ha’
been a dead ’uq,”

Then Fred told me that only a few years previously his
sister, on her way to meet her s^^eetheart at a moonlight
tryst by the black draining mill, had seen it,

“Big as a calf, sir, he cum along that l)ank quiet as death.
Jest padded along*head down, gret old ears flappin’. That
worn’t more’*! twenty yards off when that raised that’s head
and glouted [glared] at her — eyes red as blood. My heart!
She did iiullcr. She let out a shrik like an owa owl «hd
belted along that there bank like a hare. Run, sir! There
wofh’t nuthin’ could Ija’ ketchfed her. I reckon if we’d ha’
sent her to Newmarket she’d ha’ won the Town Plate for
us! She come bustin’ along that bark like a racehoss, right
slap into her young man. Ha! S,be did holler. An^ then,
when he collared hold of hcr,*she went off dead in a faint!”

“Did her young man see anything,*Fred?”

“Nit nothin’!”

“Well, she’s still alive, isn’t she, Fced.^ Th( Oog didn’t
kill her, after all.”

“Ha! Take more’n an owd Dog to kill her. She’s as tough
as hog leather. But that wholly laid her up for a week and
she’ve bin a’clan-janderin’ about it ever since.”

So Fred did not walk with me by Spinney Bank that night.
The presence of a double eight-bore .and the promise of a
quart of beer failed to shake the prestige of the Dog. And
when I told him next day that I had walked home alone that
night by the bank he answered: “More fule yew! Buj; then,-
happen the owd Dog don’t hut the g« itry !”

This legend of a ghostly dog persists all over East Anglia.

25

TALK OF GHOSTS

A very dear friend, a Norfolk peeress of the old school, one
about whom there was “no nonsense, my dear” believed in
it implicitly. She had seen^t!

One night at L«iston in Suffolk, on the toast, where the
Dog is known as “Tl^jp Galleytrot”, she and the then Lady
Rendlesham sat up in the churchyard to watch.* At twelve
precisely a slinking, sable shadow slipped among the grave*
stones like a wraith, leaped the low churchyard wall and slid
down the dark lane towards the sandhills like an evil whisper.
Neither of those self-poSsessed ladies drank, sat up late or
had ever heard of Hannen Swaffer.

Now this Black "Dog of the Fenland is the same mytho-
logical animal as Black Shuck, the enormous ghostly hound
of the Norfolk coast who is said to pad alon^ the cliff-top
path between Cromer and Sheringham.

*Qn th^ high coast road that goes dipping down through
woods and over heathy commons where the sea-wind blows,
between Cromer and Sheringham, there are villages whose
inhabitants will not walk the windy miles of that lonely road
at night if you were to offer them ten pounds and a cask of
beer.

They are scared, these hardbitten Norfolk fishermen and
ploughmen.

W. A. Dutt, in his book* The Norfolk Broadland, says:

One of the most impressive phantoms, and one of the best
known ih Norfolk, is Old Shuck (from the Anglo-Saxon, Scucca
or Sceocca, the early native word for Satan), a demon dog, as big
as a fair-sized calf, that pads along noiselessly under the shadow
of the hedgerows, tracking the steps of lonely wayfarers, and
terrifying them with the wicked glare of his yellow eyes. To meet
him means death within the year to the unhappy beholder. As
Shuck sometimes leaves his head at home, though his eyes are
always seen as big Ss saucers, he is, as ^4r Rye says, “an animal
morc^ avoidlld* than respected". One of his chief haunts is
Neatishead Lane, near Barton Broad; but he also favours Coltis-
hall Bridge, over which he always ambles without his head; and

26

BLACK SHUCK

( <

> >

a very special promenade of his is from Beaton, near Sheringham,
to Overstrand, after which his course is uhcertain. Which recalls
the old adjuration in the legend of §t. Margaret:

Still be thou still,

Poorest of all, stern one.

Nor shalt thou. Old Shock,

Moot with me no more.

But fly, sorrowful thing,

Out of mine eyesight*

And dive thither where thou man
May damage no more.

Mr. Dutt has rrfore to say on the topic in his Highways
and Byways in East Anglia:

It IS not the children only who go about at night in fear of iHack
Sj^uck. If this were a stormy night instead of a stormy day, the
old fisher-folk of the eoast would say it was just the time for
Black Shuck to be abroad; for he revels in the roaring of the
waves and loves to raise his awful voice above the howling of the
gale. Black Shuck is the “Moddey Dhoo” of the Norfolk coast.

He takes the form of a hug6 black dog and prowls along dark
lanes and lonesome field-paths, whA’e, although his fowling
makes the hearer’s blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound.
You may know him at once, should you see him, }• his fiery eye;
he has but one, and that, like the Cyclops, is in th«. middle of his
head. But such an encounter might bring you the worst of luck;
it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death
will occur before the end of the year. So you will do well to shut
your eyes if you hear him howling — shut them even if you are
uncertain whether it is the dog-fiend or the voice of the wind
you hear.

Should you never ^et eyes on our Norfolk Snarleyow, you
may perhaps doubt his existence, and, like flther learned folks, tell
us that his story is nothing but the fvld Scandinavian mj-th of the'
black hound of Odin, brought to us uy the Vikings who long ago
settled down on the Norfolk coast Scoffers at Black Shuck there

27

TALK OF GHOSTS

have beea in plenQ*} bat now and agabi one of them has come
hmne late on a darl^ stormy night, with terror written laige on
his ashen face and after th^t night he has scoffed no more.

i

A curious variation of this ghostly hound is said to haunt
an overgrown and littte-used lane called Slough •Hill in the
parish of West Wratting on the Suffolk borders of Cam-
bridgeshire. Police Constable A. Taylor^ of The Tiled House,
Panton Street, Cambridge, tells me that, in4iis youth, this
lane which is on the road from West Wratting to Balsliam
was haunted by an extraordinary thing called “the Shug
Monkey”. It was, ‘he saj’s, “a cross between a big rough-
coated dog and a monkey with big shining eyes. Sometimes
it would shuffle along on its hind legs and at other times it
would whizz past on all fours. You can guess that we
cWldren^ave the place a wide berth after dark!”

lie adds that Spanneys Gate into West Wratting Park was
haunted by a White Lady.

Another alive and kicking believer in the Black Dog is
Mrs. Sophia Wilson, a native of Hempnall, near Norwich.
Mrs. Wilson writes to me:

There is a stretch of road front Hempnall called “Market Hole”
and when I first lived* at Hempnall .sixty-one years ago, my
husband told me that there was something to be seen and haif
been seen by different residents.

Well, my dear husband passed on and I never really thought
anything more about the incident until one night my son who was
then about twenty-four came in from Norwich looking white and
scared. I said, “Whatever is the matter? Are you ill?” and he
said, “No. Coming down Market Hole I had a bad turn. I saw
what appeared to be a big Dog about to cross in front of my bike
and I drought 1 should be thrown off, but it just vanished. When
I got off my bike and looked round, there was nothing to be seen,
and I felt awfi^l.”

I am afraid I have not put this together very well, but it’s
quite true and I hope you will include it in your book, which I
shall be happy to read.

28

THE HELLBEAST

(<

n

Another version of Black Shudt is said to haunt villages
in the Waveney Valley round about Getdeston. It is known
as “T'he Hateful Thing” or “Thephurchyard or Hellbeast”,
and although usually seen in the form of n huge dog, it has
been known to take the shape of a ^“Swooning Shadow”,
whatever that may be. It is a sign that some unusually
horrible wickedness has just been committed or is about
to be.

There seems little doubt that the Hateful Thing is no
more than a garbled local version 6f Black Shuck. Morley
AdSms, who wrote that almost forgotten work, In the Foot-
steps of Borrow and FUzgerald, quotes*a story told more
than half a century*ago by an old village woman who claimed
that she oaw k when walking home at night from Gillingham
to Geldes*.'^n She tells the story in the following words:

It was after I had been promised to Josh and before we were
njjrricd that I saw the “Hateful Thing”. It must have been close
*upon the time that we were to be married for I remember we had
got as far* as “waisting” it.

It was between eight and nine and we were in a lane near
Geldeston when we met Mrs. S. an^she started to walk with us,
when I heard something beWnd us, like the sound of a dog
running. I thought that it was some farmer’s dog, and paid little
attention to it, but it kept on just at the back of U". pit-pat-pit-
pat-pit-pat! “I wonder what that dog v^nts,” I sj to Mrs. S.
“What dog do you mean?” said she, looking all round.

“Why, can’t you hear it?” I said, “it has been following us for
the last five minutes or more! You can hear it, can’t you. Josh?” I
said. “Nonsense, old mawther,” said Josh, “just you lug hold of my
arm and come along.” I was walking between Josh and IMrs. S.
and I lay hold of Mrs. S.’s arm and she says, “I can hear it now;
it’s in front of us; look, there it be!” Ajid sure enough just in
front of us was what looked like a big, black dog; but it wasn’t a
dog at all; it was the ‘fateful Thing” thrft had^been seen here-
abouts before and it betokened some g'^eat misfortune.

It kept in front of us until it cam., to the churchyard, when
it went right through the wall and we saw it no more.

29

TALK OF GHOSTS

She said that many people in the district had seen it and
that its favourite haiint was the “CJclders” which was a local
name for a clump of trei^ by the wayside on the Becclcs
Road. Morley Adams adds:

I found from conversation with other folk in the neighbour-
hood that her words were quite true; but apart from this woman,
I found no one who had actually seen th« beast, but they all knew
someone who had. I gained the following fufther infom^tion
about this weird wraith: ^t times it is seen as a large black dog,
with eyes of fire and foaming mouth. If no fear is shown, hewvill
walk just behind you, but his paws make no sound upon the
ground. The petson who sees him khould not attempt to turn
bttk <Mr the beast will growl and snari lik^ a mad d(^. He has
been known to drag children along the road by thiit' clothes, and
4ire disgster overtakes the individual who peiwts in running away
ffomhim.

The people who are most likely to see the '*Hell-hound” are
those bom under the chime hburs, or tpwards the small hours of
a Friday night

The 'same Dog runs it) Essex along the lonely coast road
from Peldon'to Tolleshunt D’Arcy. William Fell, game-
keeper *of D’Arcy, sweaVs to me that he has seen it twice on
Wigborough Hill.

The Black Dog is one with the Ghostly Hound of Dart-
moor whp haunts the moor and hunts terrified humans to
their dea^ in the quaking bogs. The Hound of the Basker-
villes is a Dorsetshire version. All have their roots in the
Hound of Odin, the mighty dog of war, w'hose legend came
to Britain a thousand years ago when the long-ships
grounded in the surf, the ravens flew at their mastheads,
there was battle and fhe clang of swords in the swirling mists,
and “all around the^houts of war ancf the cries of sea-raiders
beaching their Ihips”.

So the old myths endure. Even my Board-School-
educated Fred and his cinema-going sister would not walk

30

THE BLACK DOG OF LEEDS CASTLE

on Spinney Bank in the moon, between the wild fen and
the cattle pastures. They would not w 61 k there for all the
gold in Fort Knox or all the land in, Britain.

The countryntan is seldom a scoffer af ghosts. He may
tell you that it is all old women’s stu^ and that no one has
ever seen a thing, but, deep in his heart, he cherishes the old
legends. They were part of his childhood and of th^ child-
hood of his fathers and great-grandfathers, harking back to
stories cf the first Elizabeth’s day or the misty pages of
Saxon history. They are part of his background, and he does
not^et them slip into forgetfulness.

If you want a gentler tsort of dog, there is, or was, that
completely unknown ghost-hound, the Black Dog of Leeds
Castle in Kent. None of that numerous band, ^e profes-
sional ghost retailers, know of his existence. He is^ or was,
a strictly faniily dog. His appearances usually portended
some sort of disaster to the old owners of that lovely lake-
casfTe, the Wykeham-^,artins.

But the old owners departed after 1918, and Leeds today
is a new castle. The old rooms have vanished and new have
taken their place. Leeds, which pnce was old an^ com-
fortable, Victorian and stuff/, is now mock-medieval, fur-
nished according to Fortnum, and t^uite too terriWy'smart.
It would look rather well in America.

So I sometimes wonder if the Black Oog is still .ere. He
may not approve of mock-medievalism. ,

Have you ever seen Leeds, the “fairy castle of Kent”, as
the guide-books invariably lyricise it? It is grey and lovely,
built on three islands in the heart of a lake. The lake lies in
one of the oldest parks in Kent. The walls rise sheer from
the lake, their towers and battlements, windows and machico-
lations mirrored in lily-dappled waterS. There is a Great
Tower and an outer bkiley, a grey stone bridge across the
moat, a green inner court where Normans and English tilted
in the centuries when Leeds was you*ig. There are dungeons
and chill passages cut in the massive stone wails.

31

TALK OF OHOST8

So do you wondor that Leeds has a ghost? Yet I wonder
that its gtest should be so gentle a wraith. A Black Dog who
walks gently across the ro(gn whilst one is at tea or, suddenly,
vithout fuss, materialises on the hearth-rtg, is no fit and
apposite ghost for a <^stle where they discovered a skeleton
curled up in the final agonies of death in a tiny* torture cell
only f 9 ur feet square ... a cell where the prisoner could
neitht ’" sit, lie, nor stand. Yet in spite o^ the nightmare
deaths and horrors unbelievable which Leeds must 4iave
witnessed in its history,* the Dog alone remained as its sole
supernatural heritage.

Those who have seen him, and# I had this from Charlie
Wykeham-IVIartin of the old family, say that he was a
medium-sized animal, black, curly-haired and /airly large in
the ear-^bviously a retriever. All the tales of him are plain,
hemely tales, tales you would hear of any lovable dog in any
house . . . with the slight difference that this Dog disappears
into the wall, door, or window just, as one is beginnin’Jj to
appreciate his finer points.

The old nurse had seen it one year and the young master
had died ... or, warned jjn time, the old nurse had run to the
moat-edge just in time to gaff the young master from a fishy
grave. 'Another y;ear thfe under-housemaid had seen the Dog,
sleeping in a passage, trotting towards her or crossing a room
and melting into the opposite wall . . . and the under-housc-
maid hatj promptly up and died or been jilted by her young
man. Those were the sorts of tale. So you see that the Dog
of Leeds was catholic in the significance of his appearances.
It is as though he said: “I love you all too well to
wish you harm but, as I must coincide with catastrophe,
look out!”

That was what Happened to the lady of the old family
whom I know and* who told me thi# true tale. She sat one
autunys,afte^oon in a great mullioned bay-window which
overhung the moat and gazed across the ancient park. That
window, deep within, rose and grey without, harf gazed out

32

THB WINDOW FELL OUt!

over the park for six centuries or more. It had seen the
Saxop deer graze under* the oaks, heafd them roar to the
winter skies and had known the clamour of men-at-arms
setting out for wkr. Long generations of the old families who
made the name of Leeds great in En^ish history had sat in
that window over the moat. One would think that such a
memory-filled old window was the best place for an Jiour in
the pale sunlight of airautumn afternoon.

The Dog c^ose that moment for his first and only
appearance before the lady of that hftuse. He came suddenly,
a perfectly solid black body of strokeable dog, from the
direction of the door and«waiked across the room. She gazed
at him with mild wonder. So far as she could remember
there were »o large, black, likeable-looking dogs in the
menage at the moment. But then, in any properly regulated
house in the country, ^ou ne\er know when a new dog is 3*ot
going to bestow his introductory lick on you. Which is one
reaSbn why the countr)' is so 'much pleasanter a place to
dwell in

She gazed, ai» I say, at the dog and was preparing to call
him when, without fuss, he vanished into the opposite wall.
'I'hat is a disturbing thing t6 happen. The lady rose and
crossed the room and examined ^thls peculiar wall’ which
could swallow large black dogs alive.

And, even as she crossed the room, the wholt f that rose
and grey window-seat fell into the moat! The inasonrj' of
six centuries plunged into the water in a fou-^tain of foam.
But for the Dog she would have plunged with it and no
woman can swim well with a ton of old bricks on top of her.

So, you see, the Black Dog of Leeds is <i gentle beast with
a proper appreciation of the worth of a charming vvoman.

They have a diffi'rent sort of legend bn the Norfolk coast
where Black Shuck rtins — that of the. Shrieking Pits of
Aylmerton. No one knows who dug the pits of whenj^f why.
They have lain for hundreds of ycurs in a green field near
the village.* And in the village they tell you that on summer

33

TALK OF GHOSTS

nights when the moon is high, the wind conies fresh and
salty off i4ie North ‘Sea and bean* fields scent the night, a
woman in white walks round the Pits, weeping and wringing
her hands. No man knows her history.

The Pits may go b^ck to Neolithic days, for underground
dwellings and pits dug for flints wherewith to make stone
axes a^d arrowheads are commoner in Norfolk than most
counties. I prefer to think that the dead of | great battle in
Saxon days or village victims of the Black Death were buried
m the pits and that, for {hem, the frail wraith in white we^
beneath the moon. ^

We have a female ghost of a different sort in my Cam-
bridgeshire village of Wicken. She is a headless queen, who,
on a midsummer midnight, gallops in her coach, drawn by
four headless horses, and driven by a headless coachman,
oWr twenty county bridges.

The queen is Anne Boleyn, whose head fell after she
married Henry VIII. Hei' Norfolk home was BliclcTmg
Hall, that un^lievably lovely Elizabethan mansion which
Lord Lothian gave to the National Trust. She sets out from
there and drives through,alI the parishes of Norfolk, Suffolk,
and Cambridgeshire, w’here hdr father. Sir John, held lands.

In my bleak fenland parish the coach rolls noiselessly
doAvn Red Bam Lane at midnight, crosses the “washes” of
the River Cam in the mist, majestically takes the air and
voyages pver the river — where once was a bridge and now
no bridge is. That is the village story.

Breccles Hall, that lovely Jacobean house in Norfolk,
where the late Edwin Montague, one-time Secretary of State
for India, had his home, has another ghostly lady. She
arrives at midnight in>a coach and four, attended by footmen,
powdered and curled. The coach steps are let down, and, if
the Hall is empty,* every window s^^ings into instant light
and thfi, curious may see a ball in full swing with lords and
ladies and the squires of the county in Georgian dress. But
if you look in her eyes as she steps from her coach you are

34

THE GHOST COACH

a dead man. Jim Mace, a poacher, died of her eyes in the
early i goo’s. The story was told in The Times.

The Hall was empty and it was Christmas. Snow lay deep
and the pheasaifts had gone crowing up lo roost long ago.
The gamekeeper was old, deaf, and ^n bed. Down in the
village, farm labourers growled, in broad Norfolk, deep into
their pewter pots. The inn fire flickered and leaped. Two of
the younger men got wp.

“Jiimma bor and me is a-gooin* tu hev a brace or tu o’
^em longtails for Christmas,” announced one. *‘The wind’s
a-SIbwin’ wonderful an’ the owd keeper on’t hear us if we
du shute.” Older men trig|l to dissuade th^.

“Yu’ll hev the Christmas cooch and fower on yu’,” sud
one old man..“An’ ef yu du look in that lady’s eyes yu be a
dead ’un, bor.”

Off they went, laughing. It was then ten o’clock. By near
midnight the two poachers, using the old trick of a hollow
barffboo pole and a tin of smouldering sulphur-covered rags,
had “smoked” a dozen fat pheasants off their perches. They
carried a short-barrelled gun, but had not fired a shot.
Finally, they came out in front of the Hall. The old mansion,
empty and black -windowed, Stood stately in the moonlight,
its roofs white with snow, its twisted chimneys and eaves
sharp against the winter stars. TDo\,.. in the vj ige the
church clock boomed out the first stroke of midnigj .

Jim Mace, laughing, slipped out of the bushes and ran
across to the front door, trying to peer in at a window “tu
see them owd ghosties”.

The last stroke of the clock boomed on the icy night.
Round the bend in the carriage-way swept a coach and four,
lamps blazing, footmen at the back, coachmen oii top, four
fine horses prancing -as silent as death.*

The windows of tne Hall sprang into instant light. A foot-
man leaped down, pulled down the carriage stepg,. swept
open the door, and out stepped the .oveliest lady that poor
Jim Mace had ever seen in his life, powdered, jewelled, with

35

TALK OF GHOSTS

hair piled high and satin dress flounced royally. She gazed at
the poor, scared farm boy, flattened by fear against the Hail
door — and the most dreadful scream that Breccles Hall has
ever heard cut the«nowy silence like’ a knife.*

Jim’s friend bolted. He roused half the village, but not a
man would go near tne place that night. Jim did not come
home. ^Next morning the parson, the clerk, and half the
village went fearfully up to the deserted Hall. In the snow
lay the frozen body’ of. Mace, his face twisted in agon}\ his
eyes wde open in the mdst awful expression of fear that man
could wish to see. On the snow was no sign of whceltraclT or
footniark.

They took the body away, and when the Coroner saw the
frozen look of fear in the dead man’s eyes ha ordered that
they be photographed to see if any last imprint of the thing
which had stopped his heart-beat by terror was left on the
retina. But there was nothing.

East Anglia is rich in ghosts and legends of ghost?? in
witches and talk of wise w'omen. I have told elsewhere of the
witches of Foulness Island and the devil who threw the man
downsfairs one dark night at lonely Devil’s House on Walla-
sea Island. There are plenty ‘today in those coastal marsh
villagel who, if yo.u were to tell them that Devil’s House is
so-caHed because, in the early sixteenth century, it belonged
to the family of Duval, would smile slyly and secretly. And
tell you no more.

If you want a tale of a different sort, go inland to Woolpit
by Bury St. Edmunds, the capital city of Suffolk. Buiy is so
self-contained with its great Georgian and Queen Anne town
houses of the old squirearchy; its magnificent Angel Hotel,
which once had the best cellar of port and French wines in
East Anglia; its soaring Abbey; its wide streets, markets and
murmur of life that I doubt if it has ever heard much of
Londq^. If it had it would not be impressed.

Woolpit is a different matter, for Woolpit is not of this
world. Nor has it anything to do with wool. 'Fhe truth is

36

“it was a wolf!‘

that one night a* farmer looked out of his windo^ under the
moon and saw a great, gaunt animal come out of a hole in
the ground. He thought it was a calf. But when it lifted its
ghastly head and pared its fangs he saw that it was a wolf.

Now wolves demand guns, especially when they appear
in Suffolk. •So the farmer went downstairs for his gun.
But the wolf had gone. And, horror upon horror, it left no
footprints.

If you cannot*believe that story you must at any rate have
no doubt of the Green Children. ^Iso came out of the

Weif Pit at Woolpit. William of Newbury tells the tale.
They were boy and girl, green all over, and they lived on
green food given them b^ the villagers. They came, they
said, from a twilighf land which accounted for their colour.
But very soon'they got down to roast beef, boiled bacon and
Suffolk d.)T>nltngs The appalling result was that they
became quite normal flesh colour. *

Tie boy died, but the girl grfw up and married a man at
King’s Lynn, the port upon the Wash where the houses
have crow-stcpped gables and look as though they had
stepped straight out of Bruges. This is merely to semind
you that in East Anglia we h^d once the richest w’ool and
weaving trade in all England, so rich that the Flemings and
the Huguenots came hither in hundreJs.

I could tell you a lot more — about ’he Wailing ’Vood near
Thetford; of the Ghostly Skater who flies ovt' Hickling
Broad on frozen nights, and about the bells of lost churches
which ring beneath the waves off Dumvich, the drowned
city whose ships sailed to fight the Armada.

There is no room and no time to tell one tithe of such
tales, and not all are tellable. For example* it is s'^id tliat the
Black Arts have been revived in Sout^j Wales today by a
well-known novelist whpse education could have led him into
more useful fields than this second-hand*expIeitation of the
shoddy, sensual, discredited praci. ^s of a primitf^e and
ignorant past. There are villages within a few miles of
O A.W.— 4 37

TALK OP GHOSTS

SwsoMs^ dr^aclful tales are told of orgies practised at
itiidd^t, of cats |icnficed, of young women persuaded to
take part in rites which would riiean tmpriBonment«for all
concerned were they discovered. * This erode searching to
revive a pagan ndigion is as despicable as the actions of the
adolescent who tortures a cat in order to persuade himself
that he is a matador in a bull-fight. It is unworthy of any
noticcfexcept that of the police.

What is interesdng is the belief in the mSrshland parts of
£ss«c and, more pardgiilarly, in the Island of Sark, in the
powers of the local witch or “wise man’*. In Essex theruwre
many villages where the witch can sdll tell your fortune by
the stars, cure warts by tying a h^rse-hair about them, con-
coct a podon to cure the rheumatism or chant a spell to make
the cows give more milk. This is harmless *enough. Half
their praedees have an entirely sensible root in homely
ihedicines.

Sark, that unique little feqdal state in the Channel Islands,
is ruled under a Charter of Queen Elizabeth, by a woman,
my old friend, Mrs. Sybil Hathaway. She has her own
army,«her own Parliament, her own laws, and prohibits
divorce and motor-cars. TJie people of Sark believe in
witches so mightily that every old cottage has a “witch
step” built into the chimney. This is a flat projection, plac^
about a foot below the chimney top. It is there to afford rest
for the witches when they fly abroad at night. For, after all,
if a witdi should sit on your chimney-pot the draught of
warm air might persuade her to go farther down the
chimney, which would be dreadful for the boiling pot, terri-
fying for the children and most upsetting for the grown-ups.
But if the witch, bn her night flights, discovers a stone slab
let into the chimney’s side, where she may sit comfortably,
her eyes to the stars, her back wanqed by the flue, she will
never dream ef undertaking a sooty journey to lower and
possibl)^ warmer regions.

If you have any doubt that there are witches on Sark, La

38

The Hand of Glory

“a group of hooded figures”

Dame will tell you herself that it is only a year or two ago
that one of her prize cows was taken ill. All the veterinary
surgeons in the Channel Islands failed to cure her. But
when the village, cow-man suggested that a “wise man” of
the Island should be consulted, the cow* recovered. The
“wise nian’^ merely tied a length of wool about one of the
cow’s legs. 1 Ic announced that it would be all right in the
morning. It was. And it still is. I have seen the cow''myself
and I know this Story to be true.

The North Country legends of winches were more terrible,
ffiwe ghoulish. There is that dreadful story they still half-
believc in, deep in the Yorkshire moors,* in the lost farms
and lonely cottages of tfie dales. That is the story of the
“Hand of Glory” with its dread command:

“Fly bolt, fly bar, fly lock.

Open thy door to the Dead Man’s Knock.”

Late in the night at a lonely inn, or stranded farmhouse
in the dales, when mists shut down like blankets in the hills,
when the moon struggled through a wrack of clouds, when
cattle stirred sleepily in the dockyard and the moors slept
beneath the ghostly whistle of flighting curlew, the inn-
keeper or farmer would be disturbed by a sudden rapping
on his front door.

Poking his night-capped head out of the window there
was the horrifying vision beneath, of a group of hooded
figures, whose leader held in his right hand the shrunken,
withered hand of a dead man, its witch-like fingers crooked
about the stump of a ghastly flaring candle with whi'^h he
rapped upon the door, whilst the dread command was
incanted again and agaui.

The man in the night-cap knew well enough that the
dead man’s hand had been cut from thefswinging corps.' of
a highwayman, creaking in the chains ' a cross-road gibbet.
He knew that the tallow had been mbeed from the fat of a

41

TALK OF GHOSTS

newer corpse, of a, dead tom-cat and a par-\K)iled owl. He
knew, too, that the ^wick had been twisted from the lank hair
of the corpse of another highw*ayman. He knew thlt this
candle, its flickering light, its ghastly message, were com-
pounded of the earthly symbols of evil crime and the super-
natural— of men who carry death by day, and of birds and
animals that are the disembodied spirits of evil ones by night.

No ^vonder they imbolted the doof, threw open the dll,
the safe, and the cellar. Do you wonder tlbt for centurira
this barbaric symbol of fear held half the North in a thrall of
supersdtkm?

There is no one today who believes in the **Hand of
GSory^*. But th^e are lots of fools*and ^eurotic wtnnen who
believe in a backstairs soothsayer, a Mayfair crystal gazer, a
Hindu fortune-teller, and a gipsy on Epsom'Downs. TTie
“Hand of Glory*’ is a dead symbol, the Black Arts are pro-
scribed by the police. Witches no longer ride on broomsticks,
corpses clank no more in chains, no ghostly highwayman
rides Hounslow Heath or Bamby Moor — but tjie spirit of
foolish supersdtion is still alive, translated into sixpenny
fortunes on Epsom Downs and seances in Mayfair.

I like better, that legend of.a Norman ghost which I told
in Coasted Adventure .and take leave to tell here again. It
goes back to a night of harvest moon when I stood on a lo\?
hill above the crawling creeks of the Essex coast, with the
fields falling away from my feet to the sea-marshes, par-
tridges calling, and behind me, in a thicket of trees, a tiny
church, where lay a dead man whose heart was plucked out
by the Devil.

Now you may not believe this part of my story, but I am
assured that it is true. I was told it by a little old lady with
pink cheeks and whTte hair in coils, with tiny hands and a
soft voice which spoke the English of Surtees.

She dresses; this'pretty old lady, in black bombazine with
puffed beeves such as they wore in Edward VII’s day, and
she lives in Norman England — that is to say, in the tiny

42

A LOST, SEA-MUSICAL COUNTRY

village of Tollcshunt D’Arcy. Can you (loubt a pretty little
old lady like thatl

ToHeshunt D’Arcy is a haunting name, but no more
beautiful than ToHeshunt Knights, or Follif aunts; dian
Layer Marney or Layer de la Haye, Layer*Breton or Mani-
fold Wick,* Salcott-cum-Virley, or even Bradwell-juxta-
Mare, which are names of villages and manors, forgotten
since time began, stranded in that lost, sea-musical c0untry>
side that lies ofi either side of the great Blackwater estuaiy.
There are moated farms and guU-^ppled fields, Crusadm
inthe churches and ghosts in the deep lanes.

It is a land which the Romans knew and the Danes raided,
the Saxons lost and the Normans dwelt in. And when the
Normans had settled there and made peace with the sword,
its history stdod still. It has slept ever since. None but the
fishermen and the smugglers have coloured the tale of its
quiet days.

But ghosts and witches still )valk and litde old ladies still
believe in Norman wraiths and tell of the Devil walking the
highroad? 't'his is the tale she told me:

You see that thicket on the bill by the Wigborough Road, sir.
There, many years ago, a man set out. to build Barn Hall [and
' Barn Hall, I may tell you, was built in nbnut 1500, 'i.I '.:h shows
the deep roots of Essex legends]. This man had two spe; l-bitches
that walked beside him always. Reg’lar fond o’ them, he was.

Now, as he was a-settin’ up the beams for to build Bam
Hall, the Devil come up the road.

“Hey, there, what are you a-doin’?” the Devil hollered.

‘Tm buildin’ Barn Hall,” the man said. “Me an’ my two
speyed-bitches arc a-buildin’ it together.’’

“You won’t build Barn Hall here,” the Devil said. And he
picked up a beam and hulled it a mile, stl that it stuck up in the
ground in ToHeshunt Knights parish. “That’s where you’ll build
Bam Hall,” the Devil said, “where that beam fall T’

“I won’t! I’ll build it here — me am. my two speyed-bitches’ll
do it in spite of you,” the man said, defiant.

43

TALK OF GHOSTS

Now, you see, si^ [iny little old lady put inj, iliat man made
a wrong piece of statement there. If he’d said: “(lod an’ me and
my two speyed-bitches will do it,” h«''d had confounded th< 4 Devil.
But he left God out — a veiy- wrong thing to do, and one that led
him into ways of'confusion and hell fire.

Well, sir, the man ^‘cnt on buildin’, and every nijjht the Devil
come and hulled down what he’d set up.

So, they had a great argument, and the man said: “I’ll beat
you in the end.”

“No, you won’t,” said the Devil, “1*11 beat you. Because in the
end you’ll be dead, and* wherever they bury you I’ll come and
rend the heart out of you. That’s my curse upon you. Ma^it
lie!”

Well, sir, the man died, and he gtve orders that he was to be
buried in the Bushes Church, over at Knights, because he said
the Devil dussent go in the church after him.

But the parson at the Bushes said he couldn’t be buried in the
church, but must lie just outside, agin the wall.

And there they buried him . . . and in the night the Devil
came on his wings and plucked out his heart.

If you go to that little old church, sir, you’ll ,s«* iasidc the
poor body of the man what was turned to stone when the Devil
rent fiim.

I went, and in the chancel by the altar I found a stone
knight, visored and legless, Stephen de Patcshull, whom*
Edward the Confessor planted in this lonely parish of scat-
tered farms. There was a gash in his stone side.

In the 'dusk, with the partridges calling, I leaned on a gate
with the rector, an erudite man, and told him the old lady’s
tale.

“They all belie\;e it,” he said, “but it’s nonsense —<*\cept
that there is a man ljuried close to, but outside, the church
wall, as close as the4aw will allow.” Which is queer if you
come to think of it.

And I thought ot that other ghost which haunts Mersea
Island and of the dead-and-gone old lady who first told me
the tale of it. Her grandson tells it today. And if you want

44

THE GHOSTLY CENTURION

to hear it, why then, when next you gq to Mersea Island,
that pleasant land of fishermen and yachtsmen off the Essex
coast, •arrest your wheels’ at the Peldon Rose. The Peldon
Rose is that ancient inn which lies about six miles from
Colchester on the Mersea road. It is so ancient, this rose-
red inn on the salty edge of the sea-marshes, that they have
listed it as an Ancient Monument, which is an honour for
any old inn.

Baring-Goulfi knew the Peldon Rose and made it a centre
of drama in those Victorian novels aver which our Victorian
grandmothers shuddered.

And in the Peldon Rose I found my lady who remembered
Baring«£ould — “a tall, fhin man, who walked along the
marsh roads singing, and was forever writing books about
us”.

This lady was Mrs. Jane Pullen, landlady of the Peldon
Rose, then eighty-one years old, as active as a ballet dancer,
as upright as a ramrod, with hands and feet as tiny as those
of a doll.

Mrs. Pullen believed in ghosts. She walked with the ghost
of a Roman centurion down the road from the Barrow Hills,
on Mersea Island, to the causeway, whose glittering tides
curdle on either hand. Now the Barrow Hills are simply
Danish barrows and Roman tumali, West M< sea was
a Roman settlement when the Count of the Sax i Shore
garrisoned the fort of Othona at Bradwell, across the water.
So why should not a Roman ghost walk or* Mersea at
night?

“He came down off the Barrow Hills,” said Mrs. Pullen.
“The steady tramp of a man’s feet, like it was a soldier
marching, and he caught up with me and walked *ill the way
down to the Strood.

“I could see no one, yet the feet were close beside me, as
near as I could have touched him.

“I bopped down to look along the oad in the mdonlight,
yet no one was there. Still the feet kept on.

45

TALK OF GHOSTS

“I walked down fhc road till I came on a man I knew. He
was all a-tremble. He shook like a leaf.

“ ‘I can hear him/ he said, ‘but where is he? I can’t see
anyone/

“ ‘Keep all along of me/ I said to the man, ‘and no harm
will come to you. ’Tis only one of those old Romans come
out of the Barrows to take his walk.’

* "Aifil we walked on, sir— with the^footsteps dose beside
us, till we turned up a lane, and he went on.***

“Weren’t you Mghtsned?” I asked this pret^ old lady
with the alert eyes.

“Why should I* be?” she asked. “I put my trust in God,
and when you do that, naught can*harm you. Besides, those
old Romans do you no harm.

“My grandson, that is up in London, campeB last summer
on the Ray Island, and in the middle of the night a ghost
walked up to his tent across the marsh in the bright moon —
footsteps, and no sign of a man, and ail as bright as day.

“My grandson left his tent and ran home like a scared
little boy.”

No ene had told Mrs. Pullen’s grandson that Ray Island
and all the saltings about it are full of mounds of Roman
and Saxon origin — mpunds of charcoal, clinkers of fused
sand, Samian potterj', and the like.

It was in about the sixties that a man was “scuffling about”
on the top of Barrow Hills when the top of the mound gave
way and* he fell a dozen or more feet into a cave of inky
blackness. In the cave they found a Roman pavement, some
say an altar, the burial place of a forgotten centurion who
ruled the island when the eagles gleamed and swung across
the stony, salty Strood into the isle of oysters and wild
geese. So perhaps the centurion, tired of his musty tomb,
does sometimes take a walk on nights of springtide moons.

Do you wonder \hat they say that the spirits of the old
Crusaders in the Ess«c churches are still alive? Do you
wonder that they believe that John, Lord Mamey, rises from

46

d’arcy hall

his stone escutcheoned tomb in Layer Marney Church, or
that the D’Arcys, ruffled and armoured, steal across the moat
on moonlight nights from their cold lodgings in D’Arcy
Church to the paaelled rooms and raftered kitchen of D’Arcy
Hall.

This old dand of the Danes, asleep^by day, is alive and
awake beneath the moon at ni^t.

47

CHAPTER III

They Walk the Battlefields

T he guns in Flanders were dead. In that last month of
the grey winter of 1918 an eerie stillness dwelt on the
battlefields of France and Belgium. Dead lay unburied in
fields •and soddyi tranches. Guns and rifles, shells and
Mills bombs lay rusting. Warneton Ridge was a wilder-
ness of mud and grawling wire, shell-pocked and lonely
as the wind. Mont Kemmcl, “I’he Gibraltar of Northern
France’’^ alone with its dead and its torn trees, loomed
above the grey plains that have been Europe’s cockpit for
centuries.

By day carrion crows croaked deathlike from shattered
trees, travesties of nature whose bare trunks were bullet-
scarred and shell-splintered. Moated farms and straggling
villages lay ruined, roofless, and gaping-walled — if they stood
at all.

By night the winter moon looked on the twisted dead, the
cornfields and roofless farms with white dispassion. Frost

“that spectral town”

mantled the trc^s and whitened the teats where No. 298
Prisoners, of War Company crouched by the gaunt ruins of
Bailleul, the town which was blown to atftms in twcm^-four
hours.

No longer was the night horizon Ut by thi fantastic spears
and flashes *of gunfire, the ghostly aurora borealis of the
front line, no longer pin-pointed by ^r shells or shuddering
with the thunder of gups.

In our tents afld shacks outside the great barbed-wire cages
which prisoned 450 Germans, newly-taken, we, the guards,
shivered with cold. In their prison tents the Germans slept
like sardines for warmth’s sake. We were* new to the ruins
of that iftectral town, we* and our prisoners, who a month
before had been fighting us. The Arctic cold smote English
and Gen.*aii .uiVc.

So when at the railhead to pick up post and rations, I
heard by chance words of a great countrj' auberge — aiT
old .posting inn of the eighteenth century — whose stables
and ruined ^rof .ns were full of abandoned Queen stoves,
that perfect lituc camp cooker, I determined to impound
the lot.

Next day, late in the afternopn, after a morning of sudden
thaw, I took Corporal Barr, that minjute but unquenchable
fighting man, and set off along a rutted road from Bailleul to
the east. Flooded fields lay on eitiici side. R 'ed crops
stained the soil. The smell of dead men, cold anu oily, that
smell which strikes to the pit of the stomach like the smell
of a dead snake, was heavy op the air.

Ahead, in the afternoon sun, the road gleamed with
sudden splashes and shields of light where water lay. Two
kilometres, near enough three, and we came to the standing
archway of the auberge. I’he yellow walls of what had been
a fine old Flemish Inn stood windowlcss, gazing like dead
eyes over the fields of the dead. Bullets had sieved it; walls.
Shells had shattered the roof whci rafters and rbof tree
stood stark as the ribs of a skeleton.

49

tmH THB BATTLBPIBLDS

Under tibn sndi wMch had echoed to the clatter of
cottdi ixdieda and rung with the guttural cries of Walloon
and Flamande fanners, the courtyard^ with its Wghty
midden, showed a four-square arrhy of stables, sheds, bams,
cartsheds and coach-houses. Doors sagged on broken hinges
and sandbags filled empty windows.

Within were wooden bunks, the black ashes of long-cold
fires, rusty dixies and mouldy webbing, mildewed bully and
Maconochie tins — and Queen stoves!

We found at least » score — enough to warm our pitiful
shacks and spare one oi two for the prisoners. I told Cor-
poral Barr to bring a party of prisoners next day and remove
the lot.

That dour and unimpressionable little man with the square,
short body, the beetling black eyebrows and steady eyes —
a soldier among the best of them — said “Aye”. He was being
loquacious.

Then we started back. It was, maybe, four to four-thirty
and far from dark. In the sunset the sky had.cleared to a
wide band of apple-green fading into pink. Overhead high
clouds caught a sudden ethereal sheen of crimson and
fiamingo. The heavens were flight above the stricken earth.
On our left fiel/ds lay waterlogged and gleaming — lake
beyond miniature lake.

On the right a Iqw upland swept up to a torn, fantastic
wood of larch and birch. The thin trees were twisted into
grotesqde shapes by shell blast. It was a Hans Andersen
wood of Arthur Rackham trees through whose sun-reddened
trunks we could see cloud masses lit with a Cuyp-like
glow.

Suddenly, as we splashed through the sunset pools of that
deserted road, German cavalry swept out of the wood.
Crouching low over their horses’ withers, lance-tips gleam-
ing, red peni%int8*fiying, they charged out of that spectral
wood— Ai dozen or more German Uhlans in those queer
high-topped hats which they had worn in the dead days of

SO

The Spectral Cavalry

“flying . . . GREY-FACEQ MEN”

1914. I saw horses, men, lances, and flickering pennons clear
and sharp in the level sun.

And *»ip the slope to meet them galloped French dragoons
— ^brass cuirasses ^flashing; sabres upswung, heavy horsetail
plumes dancing from huge brass helmets. Fi&'ce-moustached
and red-faedd, they charged with flashibig sabres on heavy
Flemish chargers to inoet that fl3ring posse of grey-faced men
who swept dowii Mdth^alender lances on flying horses — the’
hurricane mee^6% the winter wind.

Then the vision passed. There was no clash of mounted
men — no melee of shivering lance and down-smashing
sabre, no sickening unhorsing of men •or uprearing of
chargers >-only empt^ upland and a thin and ghostly wood,
'silver ii. the setting sun. The earth was empty. I felt
suddenly cold!

I am no spiritualist, but to the truth of this vision I will
swear.

I glanced at Corporal Barr. He looked white and uneasy.

“Did you §ee .anything?” I asked.

“Aye — something mighty queer,” said that non-committal
little Glasgow baker. “Ssst! look! Wha’s that.^” he gasped.
His rifle bolt clicked back, a cautridge snapped in the breech
and the butt leapt to his shoulder. In ^ gap in the hedge on
the left two baleful eyes glared at i*> from a dim .''touching
shape. At the click of the rifle bolt it sprang to . feet — a
wolf in shape and size — and loped into a sudden burst of
speed.

Two rifles cracked almost as one as the grey beast splashed
through the shallow floods. Bullets spurted up sudden foun-
tains as it raced away. Not one touched it. Yet the day
before I had killed a running hare with my .30^ and Barr
could pick a crow off r tree at a hundred yards.

The beast raced belly-low into the sunset, leaving a trail
of flying water. Bullet after bullet Cracted after it, missed
by yards. We were both off our shoo .ng.

No wolf was that half-starved ghoul of a beast, but one of

C.A.W.— s 53

THEY WALK THE BATTLEFIELDS

I

r

the lost, masterless Alsatian sheep-dogs of the dead farmers,
pariahs of the battlefield who ravished the flesh of the staring
dead.

We reached camp, shaken and oddly ohy of talking too
much.

Next day, at Nevve Eglise, that skeleton of a village on
the spine of the Ravelsberg, I drank a glass or two of vin
rouge at the estaminet of the one and only Marie, a'kilometre
up the road from the Armentieres Road douane.

I asked her of the wood and the auberge. And Marie,
forty-five and peasant- wise, said: “Ah! M’sieu, that wood is
sad. It is on th#* frontier. A wood of dead men. In the wars
of Napoleon, in the war of 1870 — in this war Ki 1914 —
always the cavalry of France and Germany have met and
fought by that wood. If you will go beyond the auberge half
a. kilometre only, you will find a petite eglise. There you will
see the graves of the cavalry of all these wars. It is true, I
tell you.”

I went. In the tiny churchyard were the grayes. And the
headstones told the brief and bloody tales of gallant horse-
men in frontier skirmishes which had played prelude to three
mighty wars. And since I love a horse and revere a good
rider, whether he is an Uhlan or a Gascon under Murat, a
turbaned Mahratta or a red-coated foxhunter, I stood in
homage for a frightened minute.

Now that is a true tale. Twenty-six years later I told it in
the Second World War to a few men. A Sheffield steel man.
Colonel Shepheard, listened intently. F finished on a faint
note of defiance — “believe it or not”.

“I do believe it,” he said steadily. “I saw something of the
same sort in the last war!” And he told me this astounding
story in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.

During the 1914-18 War, as a staff colonel, he was travel-
ling in a cartffom'Hazebrouck to Wimereux. He had with
him a French captain as interpreter and aide. The car passed
through various villages, none of outstanding note. He took

54

“hooded . . . SILENT MEN”

an idle interest in the flat, poplar-linec! fields, the white-
washed farms and grubby villages.

At Wimereux they dined and slept.* And the colonel
dreamed.

“I dreamed,” he told me, “that I was travelling the same
road again in the same car through the same villages. But
with a difference. As we approached one village the car
slowed down and stoi^ped. On either side of the road were
flat fields.

“Suddenly out of the earth on each side of the road rose
up the hooded, cloaked figures of silent, gazing men — rank
beyond rank. There were thousands of them — all cloaked
and hooded like monks. *They rose slowly, and every man
stared fixedly at me. It was a queer, wistful, sad stare, like
a dumb question or a dumb warning.

“Their cloaks were grey, almost luminous, with a fine,
silvery bloom on them like moths’ wings. I seemed to touefl
one and it came off on my fingers in a soft dust.

“I can’t remember if I got out of the car or just sat and
touched the man nearest me. But they stared and stared
endlessly, pitifully, with a sadness which went right to my
heart.

“Then, slowly, they all sank back jnto the ground*— rank
‘after rank of hooded men sinking«into the earth, their eyes
fixed on me to the last!”

He shook his shoulders with a half-shiver, hah -shudder. I
waited.

“Next morning at breakfast,” he went on, “I told my
French aide of my dream. He listened and suddenly became
excited.

“ ‘You know the name of that village near where your car
stopped?’ he asked.

“‘No,’ I said. ‘What was it?’

“ ‘Crecyl’ he said.

“So,” said ex-staff Colonel Shepiioard, “I had seen in my
dream the cloaked and hooded thousands of the archers who

55

THEY walk the BATTLEFIELDS

died on Cr&y^fida in August 1346. That,” he added simply,
“is why I believe jraur yarn.”

And, to cap this tale and that of the ghostly tavalry
skirmish at Bailleul, there is the ’tale of my friend, Major
S. E. G. Pondcir, the Oriental traveller and novelist, who
lives at Bourne Mill, Golchester.

Major Ponder, a Regular gunner, served in the 1914-18
War in \ Heavy Battery of the Royal Artille^ undefa Major
Apultret, a red-faced, choleric officer with a sultrj' blue eye,
a scalding flow of language and the kindest heart imagin-
able. He was, says Ponder, the last man on earth to see a
ghost.

On a night in autumn, 1916, on the .\jsne, a captsin whom
he prefers to call “. 4 ” and a subaltern whom he calls “B”
were ordered to go up the Hessian trench to the most
advanced O.P. in order that Captain A should show
Lieutenant B the field of fire.

“It was,” said Major Ponder, “a macabre O.P. for the
parapet and parados were built mainly of the bodies of dead
Germans! For some reason the dead did not seem to decom-
pose on the Somme — something in the soil. They simply
looked like alabaster — verj’ odd.

“Well, the Boche put down an extra heavy barrage that
night and neither A nor B showed up. I wasn’t particularly
worried about them as there w'ere several deep dug-outs they
could get into.

“Next* morning, about six, I was having a mug of tea
in the mess — a half-buried Nissen hut — when Apultree
appeared in the door. He was dead white and shaking like
a leaf.

“ ‘Good lord, what’s the matter,’ I said.

“ ‘I’ve seen B,’ he said queerly.

“ ‘He’s back all right, then.?’ I said.

“ ‘No,he’sdfeidl’*

“ ‘What on earth do you mean,’ I said.

“ ‘He suddenly appeared in the door of my dug-out,’ said

56

“l WAS KILLED LAST NWJHT!"

Apultree, *and I said, ‘*Ah! so you’re back to report ail
right!’”

“ ‘ “No,” he said, “I’m not back to repbrt, sir, only to tell
you I was killed last night/’ ’

“And,” added Ponder quietly, “he was too. Shell splinter
in at the back of his ear and right through his head. Apultree
had seen him all right — no doubt about that. I believe every
word he Said.”

57

CHAPTER IV

“A Man I Know Told
Me Of . .

T here died on Monday, March 9lh, 1936, an old friend
whom I mourn. He was a man unique- -the best stoiy-
teller and the best cricketer, one of the best shots, and, after
Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, the most picturesque soldier of
his world and time — Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Foley.

Poor Cyril belonged to a school now almost dead. Heir-
presumptive to the Foley peerage, son of that almost too-
picturesque person, the late General the Hon. Sir St. George
Foley, he was not brought up to work. One was not in those
da3rs. He was a dandy and an ornament — the model of
decoruih, the glass of form in dress, conversation, and
presence.

58

THE GHOST OF CASTLE WOWTH

But although lie was not taught to work, he became a very
good soldi^, a first-rate engineer, an unforgettable conver-
sationalist, a cricketer who played for Eton, Cambridge, and
Middlesex, an author with a humorously distinguish^ style
and a personality whom all men loved and do woman forgot.

Now Cyril, the man who volunteerec^for the Jameson raid,
who was Sir John Willoughby’s galjpper in that buccaneer-
ing foray which start^ the South African War — C 3 nil wak
scared out Ris life by a ghost. It happened at Castle
Howth, in Ireland, that ancestral seat of the Gaisford St.
Lawrences which commands Howth Bay. The last, and
now-dead. Lord Howth, invited him for a \](eek-end’s shoot-
ing. Castle Howth had 'a* haunted turret wing, sheeted and
shuttered. I believe they keep it shut up to this day.

No one was allowed to sleep in it. Cyril begged that he
might. You had only to tell him that something could not,
or should not, be done, and — provided it was fair fun-r-h^
would do it.

So they made up a bed for him in a little octagonal room,
high in the turret, with barred and mullioned windows, an
enormous stone fireplace, and lit only by candles in tall
Queen Anne candlesticks. It was reached by a winding
flight of stone steps.

* The w'indows were shuttered and curtained, '^•’he fire of
logs sputtered as gaily as a gossip writer. Not . wreath of
wind stirred in the room.

He started to dress for dinner. He had got £3 far as tjing
his tie in front of the dressing-table when the candles went
out. He groped for matches, lit them again, and looked for
the draught. There was none. The room was as empty of
wind as a dictator whose bluff has been called.

Then the candles vent out again.

For the second time he lit them — and saw, looking at him
out of the glass, a rather pop-eyed Cj-mI Foley. Before he
could properly appraise his own s« ared countenahce — the
candles went out again. Phhtt!

59

“a man il KNOW TOLD ME OP . .

That was enough for Cyril. He started for thp door. He
could just see'it in the flickering light of the wold fire.

And as he strode across the daken-floored room«in that
tiny castle turret, ancient as Irish history, something pat-
tered behind hitdl

opened the door, old boy,'* he told me afterwards, *'and
I walked down the stone steps — ^winding ones, /know — with
as good a face as I could. But the <^imned thing ’followed
me!

“Pit-pat, pit-pat — ^just like that. Followed every step I
took!

“There was ? chap in the Skins, in the room under
me, and I don’t mind telling you ! fairly took rimsc last
ten or a dozen steps at the gallop. And, bv God, It ran after
me!”

. So now you have the lively picture of the terrified Foley,
l)ursting into the subaltern’s room beneath, in his shirt and
trousers, tie under one ear, face frightened, tongue babbling
out the incredible story.

“ . . . And, d’y’know, the damned thing followed me step
for step all the way downstairs — pit-pat — just like that.
Scared the pants off me ! ”

“I don’t wonder,” remarked the subaltern dryly, looking
at him. “Pity they didn't fall off. You’ve got your braces'
hanging down behind!”

The braces did not explain why the candles went out.

I remember him telling that story in my flat in Pall Mall
to that fierce-moustached, bald-headed, erudite and encyclo-
paedic pioneer of motoring, that loquacious compendium of
knowledge. Colonel Mervyn O’Gorman, the man who
invented a plan — be is always inventing plans — for a vast
raised road system round London which antedated the
Bressey Report by eight years.

Colonel O’Gomfan is a talkative and clever Irishman.
As befifs one who is vice-president of the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale, vice-chairman ofi the Royal

6o

“a shuddering sick”

Automobil& Glut, and an ornament of innumerable other
learned anoidistinguished bodies, he a man of meticulous
observation and scientific hiind, not lightly given to hasty
conclusions.

This is what happened to Colonel O’Gonfian. As a young
man he was given to athletic pursuit coupled with an
insatiable desire to explore new loims of transport — a
characteristic which h^ lingered. So he became a bicyclist:*
one of the first.

One day he cycled from London* to Shipton Manor, in
Oxfordshire, where he was invited for the week-end. It is
a long way. He arrived tired out. After tlinfier he retired to
an early I^d, so fatigued that he could barely keep his eyes
open. His room was an impressive apartment, panelled and
dimly li*’ i', .andles. The bed was large and low. He un-
dressed and fell into bed. His head had barely touched the
pillow before he was asleep. You will note that he was in a
most unpropitious mood for ghosts.

Late in the .light he awoke. His senses were suddenly
alert. Something was in the room. lie could hear nothing,
yet that sixth sense of all Irishmen told that he was not alone
in the great gloomy room. It was pitch dark. He could not
see his hand in front of his face. 'I’lie house was utterly
Still. He lay listening.

Suddenly It came ... a long-drawn shudder. ■» sigh. It
ended on a sob, the sob of a tired and wear}’ person. And the
sound was within a foot of his head.

He lay like one dead, petrified with ^leaven knows w’hat
apprehension. For five terror-ridden minutes he strained
every nerve to catch another sound which might explain that
ghastly sobbing sigh. Then, slowly, inexorably almost, the
bed moved beneath him. Something, some grim force, was
moving the very bed on which he lay. It heaved upwards . . .
then subsided. And again came that ghasfly shtidderii'g sigh. _
Then silence.

Perhaps twenty minutes later he fell asleep. Even the

6i

**A MANfl ImOW tOht> Un 0t .**

pttsenee oi thm tstiilfyiAg other Thing m the room was
not proof against the l^dgue of the day.

Hours later he woke again, every nerve tense. Something
was moving in the room. Very softly It moved ... a slow,
sibilant, draggidg sound. It was as ^ough a tired soul was
moving through etefnity. And there came the thin clink of
a chain. Even in death^e Thing was fettered.

Then happened the most terrifyipg manifestation of all
that nightmare night. The Thing reached*the door not ten
feet from O’GormanV bed, and smote it ... a dull heavy
blow as though a pillow of feathers had been hurled against
it. In the almost opaque blackness of the room he saw for
one dreadful second the dim visiohbf a^giant, formless shape
reared against the door ... a shape unlike man or beast. Then
the shape disappeared. Again came that sobbing, pain-filled,
terrible sigh.

Alone in that pitch-black room with the prisoned spirit,
the victim of an ageless crime, he lay stone-cold with terror,
not daring to stretch out a hand for match or candle. And
so the dreadful night dragged on. Towards morning he fell
asleep. The Thing had not made itself heard again.

He woke in a start of reawakened terror to find a footman
drawing the blinds ^nd wishing him good morning. The
man turped tow’ards the*foot of the bed to take ©’Gorman’s
clothes. Suddenly his jaw dropped. He stared at the foot
of the bed with horror.

“Good Heavens, sir,” he gasped, “you don’t mean to say
that our dog has been in here all night, sleeping under the
bed. And with his chain on too! Here . . . come out of it,
Bruce . . . time you were fed.”

Which reminds* me, for no particular reason at all, of the
night when my wife and I slept in a small manor-house in
Norfolk. We had stayed in that house every shooting season
for many years. The month before we arrived our host’s
mother,* a charming, elderly Scots lady who “saw things” —
harmless, gentle, fairylike things, spectral rabbits and imps,

62

‘the M6ST TERHIFYING T%£VfOMBNON*

ghostly bir^ and elves on toadstools— had ^ed. She had '
reach^ th^ decorative stage of old ^ge whra she walked
from rdOm to room leaning gracefully on ti thin, black, gold*
topped, ebony walking*8titk. Its tap-tap on the floor-boards
was an everyday noise of the house.

We went to bed early. I was asleep by eleven. Somewhere
about midnight two sharp taps rattled on the floor-boards of
the bedrdorn. Two more struck the wall above my head. We
both sat up, wibe awake. The blows were so sharp and
distinct that the echoes seemed still to ring in the room. But
we heard no more.

Next morning I told my host’s wife. She begged me not
to say anything to hef husband.

“We heard it every night for a month after she died,” she
explained. “But now we don’t hear it at all. I expect she
came to visit you because you knew her so well.”

She offered to change our room for us. We refused. Since
then we have stayed in the house more than once — ^but no
more stick tappings have come in the night.

And now I will tell you of the most remarkable London
ghost, the most terrifying phenomenon I have ever heard of,
witnessed by tw'o eminent and sceptical journalists — the late
Ralph Blumenfeld, one of the greatest editors of this century,
and Sir Max Pemberton.

It happened some years ago, when Blumenfelo 'as editor
of a great national daily newspaper. Remarkable stories
filtered into the office of a nameless Terror which haunted a
set of barristers’ chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. The rooms had a
diabolical reputation. One man had committed suicide there.
Another had gone mad. Two or three had left the place,
clearly scared but unwilling to risk ridicule by saying what
they had seen. So the news-hawks of Fleet Street got busy.

R.D.B. arranged with the owner of the building that he
and Sir Max Pemberton should ha' c fr^e us^ of the rooms .
for one night, that they should furnish them as they chose
and print exactly what they saw.

63

“a man* I KNOW TOLD ME OF . .

So the rooms, which communicated, were istripped of
furniture, carets, and window hangings. The iciectric light
bulbs were left naked. The wfndows were shuttetcd and
closed. The communicating dool^ were left wide open.

And at a green baize table in the main room, the two men
sat down at 1 1 o’ci({ck in the evening, with a plate of sand-
wiches, whiskies and soda, and a pack of cards. The floor of
each room was strewn thick with powdered chalk.

An ho'ir went by. The naked electric lights lit starkly the
bizarre picture of these two, seated opposite each other on
spindly office chairs, the rustle of the cards the only sound
in the quiet room.

Midnight came. Outside was a full, moon. I’he trees in
Lincoln’s Inn stood still and brooding against the stars.
White moonlight picked out roofs and chimney-pots with
uncanny distinctness. The great clock of the Inn boomed
the first resounding, tremulous note of midnight. Twelve
times the night silence of that corner of Dickensian London
throbbed to the heavy strokes of the clock.

The electric lights glared down on the two men, looking
at each other with whimsical amusement. They had come
prepared to take the matter in all reasonable seriousness.
Midnight w'as the hour when things were supposed to
happen. .Midnight had Struck. And nothing had happened*.

“Well, it looks as though the visit is off,” said R.D.B.

“Yes,” said Max Pemberton. “Your deal.” He spoke with
almost rt)mic relief.

Then It arrived. The outer door ffew open. The two
windows, bolted and shut, flew wide open. The lights went
out. A strong rushing wind filled the room. Great wings
beat through the rooms as though a mighty bird were pass-
ing. An overpoweringly evil presence hovered for a second.

Then the lights went on. The two men looked at each
. other with deid-wHite faces.

“Did you see anything.?”

“No, but I felt it."

64

Bird Elemental

“a gigantic bird’'

Suddenly theif eyes went to the floor. There, across the
white, chal&strewn surface of each room were*the enormous
three-toed i^tprints of a gigantic bird— ra bird which had
taken six-foot strides. Nomore than that! That was all that
they ever saw or felt of the Bird Elemental of Lincoln’s Inn.

The building was pulled down aften^rds, and no trace or
sign of the Elemental which haunted the old building has
been seei>in the new.

This story is*interesting inasmuch that it happened in
London, that there were two reliable 'witnesses, and, above
all, that the manifestation of a bird as an elemental is
extremely rare.

In Eas* Africa the datives firmly believe that Mount
Elgon, in Tanganyika, is haunted by an enormous bird
w'hich flies down from the mountain top at night and carries
off full-f-iuvMi bucks. It may be an inherited legend frorri
the days when that giant bird, the now extinct Epyomis
Maximus, roamed Africa.

But that excellent and impartial authority on African
natives and their customs, Mr. Blayn'y Percival, late Game
Ranger of Tanganyika, records that he has met native after
native who have sworn to the;truth of the story.

To return to our London. A few years ago, in 1939,. to be
precise, that bland pillar of the London stage. Me. McQueen
Pope, the man who should be bound In gilt calt printed on
vellum and presented to the British Museum as «n encyclo-
paedia of theatrical history — this perambulating monument
of stage lore, invited me to sit up in Drurj’ Lane Theatre to
watch for the ghost.

There is no doubt that they have one. Charwomen, fire-
men, actors, and even members of the audience have seen
it — the ghost of an cighteenth-centur>’ 'dandy, murdered in
1780, bricked up in a little ante-room and discovered only a
few years ago when the skeleton, still clad in the shreds of a
grey riding coat, was found when vorkmen openfed up a
wall.

67

“a man 1 KNOW TOLD ME OF . .

A dagger was sticking in its ribs.

We did not see the ghost — but we did see a ^ery peculiar
bluish light whicl) came out of the wall, flickered round the
back of the upper i:ircle, and vanished again.

The mere fa(?t that the young man of 1780, whose ardour
for one of the girl^ was punctured by six inches of steel,
preferred not to show jap, has not dimmed the belief or the
enthusiasm of Mr. McQueen Pope.

“It’s the most genuine ghost I kndiv, Jimmy,” he
announced, with tremendous finality. “And it always appears
just before a successful run. He turned up just before we
began ‘Glamorcjus Night’. Then before ‘Careless Rapture’.

‘Crest of the Wave’ was his favoiinte show, for he not only

• *

appeared just before it, but several times during the run.”

Could any publicity manager want a better ghost than
that?

But when I talked to one cleaner in the theatre and sug-
gested that the ghost had a good box-office sense, she looked
at me witheringly and said:

“B’raps you ’aven’t seen it. I ’ave! I saw ’im sitting in the
upper circle one afternoon watching the stage. All empty it
was too. A nice young man> slim — oh! a real good figure —
and no ’at on. All iij gyey, just as they say.

“In fapt,” she wound'up, “he looked so like our dear Sif
George Alexander — what a ’andsome gentleman he was- -
that I moved up the row behind him to ’ave a peek. And
then ’e vanished. What do you say about that?”

What is there to say after that?

And here let me tell of a different sort of haunting.

It happened in Essiex, that county of haunted houses.
There are no less* than three, they say, in and about those
villages called the Baddows. A year or so ago I motored
through the Baddow country. I pointed to a passing glimpse
of old Elizabethamgables among dark trees and said to my
wife:

“That house is to let. I’ll look at it on the way back.”

68

“a dark patch on the floor”

She, a Sc<|t froAi the Western Isles with the Gaelic twilight
in her blood, shuddered and said:

“It’s haunled. I wouldn’t live in it tor anything.”

She had never .seen that house nor kifew its name, nor
knew aught of it but that one fleeting glimpse at the gables
through the trees.

On the way back, since I love all old houses and have no
sense of decency about g<^ting into them, I stopped and
called, with my shooting partner. Sir Jocelyn Lucas. Now
he is a Member of Parliament and therefore cannot tell a lie.
So I call on him as my witness.

The caretaker, a cadaverous fellow with a patch over one
eye, showed us into a cavernous hall, up broad, dusty stairs,
to a shallow landing, tvhose cobwebbed windows looked on a
stone-paved courtyard and, beyond it, a grass plot.

We stncJ the landing for a moment and contemplated^
the empty stone-paved hall, the dusty corridor, the yawning
doors, in the autumn gloom. It had a boding sense.

“Is this house haunted?” 1 asked.

“No,” said the caretaker. “I ain’t ''ecn nothink. But see
that bullet ’ole in the window there. . . .”

We saw. A neat, round hol^ splintering outwards like a
star.

“A sojer chap stood on this very landing a year or two ago
an’ another chap suddenly poked hL /ifle out c that door
over there and shot 'im dead. ’E dropped and L.ed where
you stand, sir.”

Sir Jocelyn moved hastily from a dark patch on the
floor.

“That warn’t the tail end of it all neither,” pursued the
caretaker remorselessly, mentally licking his chops, “.\nother
sojer chap chucked ’isself off the roof and fell ’ead fust on
the stone paving in the yard there. Bruk ’is blessed neck.

“An’ another on ’em ’ad a word or tew, with Jiis orficer on
that grass patch over there, pulleo i revolver out of his
pocket an’ shot ’is blessed self dead. Dropped right at the

G.A.w. — 6 69

**A MAN I KNOW TOLO M« OF . . /'

orficcr’s feet. But the 'ousc ain’t 'aunted. *Lea8|ways I ain’t
seen notfunkyet."

We walked thoughtfully downstairs. In the# kitchen
quarters thecaretfeer threw open a doosHP^inted down dank
dripping stone* steps into a cavern, smelling of graveyard

mould, and said ogrtishly:

“Cellars. They run for ever under this ere old ouse. Ha!
out under the grounas tew. L*kc ^o go down iem.^ The
electric light’s orf but you can strike matches.’’

“No,” we said. I be»t Jocel)'n to it by a split second.

“Ha! Yew oughter! There’s an old room down there with
a great old iroq door, two or three inches thick. Bin locked
for years. No one can open that there door. The^rmy tried
with blow lamps. No cop. Gawd knows what’s in there. . . .
Go on. Go and ’aVe a look at it. It ain’t ’aunted. Leastways
,I ain’t seen nothink yet.”

• We w'ent away, leaving the dark red, old house, within its
■^h walls, shadowed by huge dripping trees, its paths over-
'wn, its ponds green and grey with sodden muck, its *
^dows mute with their tale of three violent deaths, its
^ <;aker, who lives there alone and, so far, “ain’t seen

spent a night, under the harvest moon of 1939, in Borley
j^jetory, which is on the Suffolk-Essex border. It is, they
jjpfly, “the most haunted house in England”. The late Mr.
.aPHarry Price, who was the Honorary Secretary of the
Psychical Research Society, wrote a book about it under that
title. They will tell you that an uneasy spirit throws things
about in the Rectory. Doors open and shut. Footsteps ring
where no feet walk. Bloody fingermarks appear, suddenly, on
the dining-room \valls, oozing blood. And there are one or
two lighter sides.

Some years ago Borley Rectory was burnt out.

I went into the noofless room, taking a friend and a double-
barrelled gun. We found no bloody fingerprints downstairs.
We stood at the foot of the staircase and looked up it to a

70

“huge and black”

landing and pasWge where wallpaper flickered in tattered
streamers aijd the moon made shifting shadowfs.

“Let’« go upstairs,” I suggested to my fi^iend, who is young
and a soldier. H»«twddered.

“Not for anything. There’s Something up the top of those
stairs. It’s watching us. I can feel It» I can damn nearly
see It — huge and black. Something yjuatting.”

I raised my gun.

“Come outside,” he said. “For God’s sake don’t shoot. I
don’t like it. In any case, you’ll fetch the neighbours, and
we shall get into trouble for being here.”

Now there are no neighbours near to Borley Rectory, but
an old empty church and k farmhouse. But we went outside.
We stood under a tree in the bright moon and looked at the
black, staring, empty windows of the house that no one could
live in foi iong. And Something seemed to be watching us,
malevolently, from those eyeless windows.

Then It shot between my legs. I felt its harsh bristles, its
snaky undulating muscles. It was a black cat. It went into
the house with a bound. And it did not come out agaii^.

Now one can put what construction one likes on that.
Harvest mice are the likeliest. ‘But when, a year later, I met
a man whose London newspaper had, sent him to spend an
Inquisitive night at Borley he said:

“I wouldn’t go up those stairs for a fortune the dark.
There’s Something very odd in the upper regions. I stood
outside and watched the house — and, do you know,* a damn
great black cat came between my legs like a bullet and went
into the house like a shot out of a gun. It never came out
again. And when I asked at the farm they said they had no
black cats. No one round there has a blac^ cat. But anyone
who stands in that garden at night always sees that cat go
into the house. It’s a spook! That’s what I think.”

So do I.

Newspapermen are not usually superstitious. They believe
in beer, tobacco, and expense sheets. They are alive to

71

“a man I KNOW TOLD ME OF . .

the foibles of great men, the platitudes o'f politicians, the
inanities of hhn stars, the illiteracy of film directors, and the
gullibility of an honest and well-meaning public. But they do
not believe in ghosVs.

Consider then the tale told me by Mr. J. B. Wilson, who
was News Editor ©f the Daily Express for more years
than men’s minds may. run to, and is still a puissant Elder
Statesman of that great organ of light,and truth. Mr. Wilson
I revere. He taught me my trade. I count him as a benevo-
lent Buddha at whose feet any man may sit with benefit and
learning. It is, in his opinion, the “tallest” ghost story he has
ever heard in alj his long experience, but the tale, whether
true or not, is fantastically horrifying, and has a clftse affinity
with similar supernatural happenings elsewhere — particu-
larly on the Continent. I include it, therefore, with
reservations.

Now years ago, between the wars, J.B. sent a reporter —
and reporters are amongst the most intelligent of men — to
investigate the alleged haunting of a London house. This is
whaj; happened.

It was a brick-built, Victorian sort of house in a suburban
road. It had a basement and -three stories above it. It looked
the sort of house in w.hich no one ever did wrong, where the
milkman, was always paid punctually and where the front-
room on the ground floor centred about an aspidistra. One
of those bald-looking houses.

Queer things went on in the basement. Knockings and
bangings. Things were thrown about. People who w'ent
down there to put the milk in a cool place, or dump a sack
of potatoes, were thrust aside by an invisible Something. It
had an evil and a Horrible atmosphere.

So at a quarter of an hour before midnight four men sat
in the cellar of this otherwise highly uninteresting house in
the south of England. One was Mr. Stanley Bishop, a star
Fleet Street reporter and a person not lightly given to non-
sense. I have counted Mr. Bishop as a friend long enough

72

“an O VERMASTERI{IG presence”

to know that his word is truth. The other three men included
a psychic investigator, a clergyman, and an ‘independent,
unbiased witness.

Before them oi»t hc floor a circle was rp^rked out in chalk.
In the middle of the circle stood a wire Cage with a live
mouse in it. The mouse took no notict^of the four men. It
was too occupied with thj cheese vkich littered the floor
of the cage, Overheajl electric lights glared starkly from
unshaded bulbs.* Every corner of the cellar was brightly
lit.

Not a w’ord was spoken. The faces of the men betrayed
their thoughts. Mr. Bishop, amused, slightly cynical, a
typical haPd-boiled iiewspkperman waiting to see what new
freak life was going to spring on him. The psychic investi-
gator, frankly interested, on the tip-toe of expectation. The
parson, thoiightful, almost worried. And the fourth man in
a twitter of uncertainty.

In that dead silence the faint tick of a watch sounded with
deadly clearness. Then, outside, the first stroke of a clock
boomed out the notes of midnight. Tne independent wkjiess
shivered, the parson lifted his eybrows, and the mouse ceased
eating.

Had it possessed eyebrows it would have lifted them. It
trouched and shuddered. Then it rtm wildly ro’'nd,the cage,
like a mad thing. A sense of terrible evil filled t. room. It
was cold and inhuman, that sudden sense of an overmaster-
ing, dreadful Presence.

The mouse fell, kicked convulsively once, and w’as dead.
The chill Presence had slain the tiny thing with a thunder-
bolt of evil will-power.

And then, as the watchers watched, the mouse, not five
seconds dead, turned to rotten, putrefying matter. Its coat
shrivelled, the hairs fell out, the skin peeled off, and before
the fascinated, watching eyes of ff'ur beholders the small
body disintegrated into slime and stinking matter. And as
this thing happened, so the Presence intensified the cold

73

“a man I KNOW TOLD ME OF . .

t

atmosphere of evil. The cellar became a Hreadful charnel-
house of the Devil . . . then the Presence faded, the chill died
away, the atmosphere became almost normal.

The next night ^he watchers waited onoe more. This time
the circle was occupied by a large joint of fresh beef on a
platter. It was as fr«sh as meat can be, ht for consumption,
fit to keep for a week if pecessary.

And at midnight the cellar, warme|J by oil-stoves, became
suddenly chill. The same sense of evil pefvaded the entire
room. The ghastly Presence once again dominated the four
watchers. And before their eyes the joint of fresh meat
turned first blpish, then grey and oozing putrefaction,
and finally slopped into rotting 'slime. The stench was
unbearable.

It was then that the parson arose, a tall, white figure of
dignity.

In a voice terrible with the majesty of the Church of God
he spoke the solemn words of the prayer for the exorcism of
devils and all evil spirits. The splendour of two thousand
yeat;^ of triumphant Christianity was in that solemn prayer.
By bell, book, and candle, by the Word of God and by Holy
Water he commanded the eiil Thing which had done this
deed,«to begone and gease from troubling the house wherein
they sat. ,

Since that day the House of the Rotting Meat has had
peace.

Now,* to go back to the beginning, this strange affair w-as
the climax of one of the most remarkable hauntings in the
whole history of the supernatural in England. For a con-
siderable period the house had been troubled by an evil
spirit, a dominating sense of something terrible and menac-
ing. No one would ‘stay in it. Tenants felt that their lives
were in peril. Servants refused to stay. The owner seriously
contemplated^ulling the house down.

As a last resort a psychic investigator was allowed to try
his hand. By invoking old prayers and exorcisms he claimed

74

SIR HENRY SEGRAVE

•

finally that* he h*ad located the seat of the evil spirit in a
certain cellar of the house. There the ma^c circle was
drawn. .There the mouse died. There fhe spirit was cast out.

The late Sir Ueary Segrave once toltj me that the only
time he was really frightened by the unknown was when he
saw a piano rise in the air without visible means of support.
I’hat particular little trick happened in Hannen Swaffer’s
flat overUoking the Nurse Cavell statue at the junction of
Chandos Street tnd Charing Cross Road. Hannen tells me
it was nothing out of the ordinary. .But then he is accus-
tomed to such things. He is not as other men.

Poor Heary Segrave was a very dear friend and I knew
his beliefs*and pet aversions. He was superstitious up to a
point. He believed in an after-life from which it would be
possible to communicate with people still living.

When he .va<! at Daytona Beach between the wars, waiting
to make an attempt on the world’s land speed record, he
suddenly received a message from Swaffer in England. It
w’as a cablegram sent through a second person, and it warned
him to beware of the driving belt of his car. It would prob-
ably snap at a certain number of revolutions per minute.

Now, Hannen Swaffer knows nothing about motor-cars.
Even he will admit the fact. But at a, seance in his house a
fnessage came through from the late J. G. Parrv-Thomas,
the famous racing motorist and one of the best . lows that
ever walked. Parry-Thomas was killed at Pendine Sands in
Wales when the driving belt of his car snapped und beheaded
him while the car was travelling at over one hundred miles
an hour. I told the whole story in my Life of Sir Malcolm
Campbell.

Parry Thomas’s spirit warned the medium in Swaffer’s flat
that Segrave’ s chain .vould snap in the same gianner and at
a certain given number of revolutions. Segrave had the chain
taken off and tested. It snapped at the givfin number of
revolutions. Had he been in the cax he would have been
killed.

75

“a man I KNOVV TOLD ME OF . .

Two years later, on June 13th, 1931, HaVinen < 5 wafTcr left
the bedroom bf his flat to go out for an hour or two. He and
Mrs. SwaflFer both noticed a copy of a daily'paper lying
on the bed. It wasjfolded flat in its propeMequence of pages.

Some time lifter they both returned. 'I’he flat had Iktu
locked during their «bsonee. No person had be(“n left in it.
They walked into tlie b^'droom they had left. The newspaper
was no longer there. The electric ligl|t bulb from the middle
of the ceiling was in the fireplace unbriilli'n. In the next
bedroom the missing newspaper lay on the bed . . . open at
the page which gave the morning’s news of .Sir Henry’s
forthcoming att^jmpt to be maile that ilay. 'I’heyjiook it back
to the first bedroom, folded it amf filaced it back (*n the bed.
The electric light bulb was restored to its place.

Half an hour later SwafTer went into the first l>edroom.
The newspaper had lx“en removed to the second beilroom
and again lay open at the same page as Ixforc. 'fhe electric
light bulb was again in the fireplace. Sixin after the telephone
bell rang. It was the Daily Express speaking:

“pome back to the office at once, please,” said a voice,
“Sir Henry Segrave has crashed and is not expected to
Hve....”

I know that story v> be true in fact and detail. You may
make whjt meaning you please of it.

76

C H A P T E R V

Some London Hauntings

H istoric bricks were falling in Kensington as this
book was being ^^Titterv. The walls that sheltered
Premiers and statesmen, wits and pofts, great writers and
high commanders, dissolved in dust which filmed the leaves
of oaks and cedars that were seedlings when London was a
little city, Knightsbridge was a hamlet, and Kensington a
muddy village infested by footpads. For the last remains of
Holland House, the last great Elizabethan private palace
within the metropolis, was being pulled down in the spring
of 1954 *tid historv' was blown away on the wind.

The great rose-red mansion which was \he living ncart of
a mighty tradition st od then, a sere kkclet^n of magnifi-
cence, scarred by bombs and scorched by fire. The last^var
dealt the death blow.

The London County Council bought, from the Earl of
Ilchester, thf house with its fifty- four acres of woods and

77

SOME LONDON HAUNTINGS

•

meadows, terraced gardens and lovely parterres A)r a quarter
of a million pounds, to turn it into a permanent open space.

Within the heart df this unique pleasance tHere will still
stand the remains ^of the ballroom and the otately arcades of
one front. Almost all the rest was razed to the ground.

Valiant efforts and eloquent pleas were made to restore
and rebuild the mansiqp. But the cost would have been too
great, the burden on the ratepayers ^oo monumental. What
London will lack in the glory of bricks aftd mortar it will
gain 'in tht peace of gardens and the mystery of ancient
woodlands, whose story is as old as time. The ghosts and the
memories remaip.

Holland Park suggests an ulti’Z-respectable labyrinth of
tree-lined streets in which gentility, not yet decayed, but
hovering on the ’brink, still maintains those Victorian
standards of which South Kensington is the arch-champion.

But the Holland Park of bricks and mortar is a mere
tamed and civilised slice of that true Holland Park, whose
virgin acres have never known the pick or trowel of a builder
sinqo the last woad-clad Briton pitched his skin tent on that
pleasant champaign which overlooked the snipe marshes of
Earl’s Court and the green and quaking bogs of Fulham.

Northumberland P^ouse has gone. Above its gates, front-
ing Trafalgar Square, there stood, in the memory of many;
the great stone Percy Lyon. The house vanished on the
tide of Jabez Balfour’s visions and the Lyon now gazes from
the root of Syon House across the Thames to Kew Gardens.

Devonshire House fell before the march of Americanised
plutocracy in architecture. What was Lansdowne House is
now a warren of flats and a club. The tale of those other
mansions which once made London a city of private palaces
is now dead ]ustory. Alone, Holland Park, until the war,
maintained the dignity of a great private house set amid oaks
and cedars, gfe6n grass and terraces and the charm of birds.

There are still owls in its oaks, pigeons nesting in their
branches, still hawks that hover and still a pheasant who

78

WHEN ADDISON WAS DYING

crows when'the stin sets. There are even men who say they
have heard the nightingale in Holland Park.

And yet, ^ith all this unspoiled bekuty, this essence of
old London, not one Londoner in a thousand has seen the
house or knows a tittle of its story.

Holland House was built in 1607, a*few years after the
first Elizabeth had gone to her gr^ve.* Sir Walter Cope,
father-in-law of Henry ^Ricli, Earl of Holland, who took his
title from Holland in Lincolnshire, was its builder. He called
it Cope Castle, and it stood in the fields, at the end of muddy
country lanes, far from the city walls. I’o reach it you
travelled byjiorse, past the hamlet of Knigly.sbridge, where
two medieval knights ond^ fought upon a bridge until both
were slain. Then* one went by way of the village of Kensing-
ton, which, until late into the time of the Georges, was a
nest of rcbb^.3, a cesspool of iniquity.

The widow of Henry, Lord Holland, married Addison,
sometime Secretary of State, that star of English literature,
from whom Addison Road takes its name, just as Warwick
Road and War\^ick Gardens are named after his stepson,
the Earl of Warwick.

Addison wrote some of his ‘best work in the rooms of
Holland House. Until the bomb fell, tljey still preserved the
Old green velvet-topped table, stained with his ink splashes,
on which he wrote.

When Addison was dying in Holland House, he sent for
his stepson, the dissolute Earl of Warwick, whv.se debauch-
eries were Oriental. As Warw'ick walked to the bedside,
Addison raised himself painfully on his pillows, looked him
straight in the eye and said, in the slow tones of one near
death: “I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian
can die in peace.” He leaned back and two^minutes later
was dead.

Leigh Hunt had a charming storj' of Addisoif. He gives us
a picture of him pacing the great horary which ran from
end to end of the house, a hundred and fifty feet in length,

79

SOME LONDON HAUNTINGS

and there meditating those “Spectators’” whi<!h made his
name. At either end of the library stood a bottle of wine on
small tables, and Addison “comforted his ethic^ by*taking a .
glass of each as he arrived at either end of the room”.

It is a nice story, but, as a later Lord Holland rightly says:
“Fancy may trace the exquisite humour which enlivens his
papers to the mirth inspired by wine; but there is too much
sober good sense in all his lucubrations, even* when he
indulges more in pleasantry, to allow u? to give implicit
credit to a tradition invented, probably as excuse for intem-
perance, by such as can empty two bottles of wine, but never
produce a ‘Spe<y:ator’ or a ‘Freeholder’.”

Addison’s ghost is not one of those \yho haunt the pathetic
ruins of Holland House, but if you go back to that pleasant
and credulous gossip, John Aubrey, you will find this story;

“The beautiful Lady Diana Rich, as she was walking in
her father’s garden at Kensington, to take the fresh air before
dinner, about 1 1 o’clock, being then very well, met with her
own apparition, habit and everything, as in a looking-glass.
About a month after, she died of the small-pox. And it is
said that her sister, the Lady Elizabeth Thynne, saw the like
of herself, before she died. This account,” he adds, “I had
from, a person of honour.”

Now this story may be true or not, but it is an odd fact
that, thirty or more years ago, the Dowager Lady Ilchesier
told my mother that the ghost of a woman had been seen in
the grounds more than once.

There is a grimmer ghost, the figure of Lord Holland, who
walks on certain nights with his head beneath his arm. It is
an ironic haunting, for if any man deserved to lose his head it
was Lord Holland.

The Hollands were succeeded by Charles James Fox, who,
when he became a peer, also took his title from the house. It
is the only tiihe that a London house has provided an heredi-
tary title. Fox lived but little in his great house, for as all
history knows, he drank, gambled, and dwelt in clubs.

8 o

Ghosts of Holland Park

IF I AM DEAD

t i

y y

His fathei^enfy Fox, “the elder Fox”, the bitter opponent
of Lord Chatham, made a mark on history which will outlast
,the memory bf Holland Housai Better’than all his political
achievements, I like that story of how, when he lay danger-
ously ill, George Selwyn, whose greatest w^rfcperhaps, to my
mind, was that he helped to found White’s, called on him.
Now it was well known that George ^eltvyn always liked to
be in at th^ death wher^ a friend was dying or a man was to
be hanged. No pial)Iic execution was complete without him.

They told Lord Holland that Selwjm had called and*Been
sent away. “Be so good,” said his Lordship, “in case Mr.
Selwyn call% again, to show him up without fail; for if I am
alive I shaM be delighted fo see him, and if I am dead, I am
sure he will be very pleased to see me.”

It was the third Lord Holland who created for Holland
House tbai ...'.dying tradition which has given it a permanent
place in the history of English art and literature. He was one
of the last great patrons of the arts. His house and his stables
were open to any man with brains. What a resounding roll
there is of those who made the cir^^le which produced a
mighty epoch.

Reynolds, Lord BjTon, Washington Irving, Tom Moore,
Sheridan, Lord Macaulay, and Talle>Tgnd are a few to whom
Holland House was a second home.

Before the war they still showed the bedroom f Charles
Fox, the chamber in which Addison died, the room where
Rogers, the poet, slept, and one almost adjacent whera Sheri-
dan stayed many nights, “in the next ’■oom to which”, as
Leigh Hunt says, “a servant was regularly in attendance all
night, partly to furnish, we believe, a bottle of champagne to
the thirsty orator, in case he should happen to call for one
betwixt his slumbers, and partly — of whrch thg'e is no doubt
— to secure the bed-curtain from being set on fire by Jiis
candle”.

One could tell many more storus of Holland House.
There is, for, example, the delicious one of Lady Caroline

83

SOME LONDON HAUNTINGS

I

Lennox, who was ordered by her parent^ to o6me down to
dinner to meet the man they had chosen for her husband.
She obeyed, against her will, .and came do\^n— ^with her.
eyebrows shaved off!

Then there h 'the tale of how a Lord Holland called on
Lord Lansdowne and showed him the epitaph he had com-
posed for his own tombstone: “Here lies Henry Vassall Fox,
Lord Holland, who was drowned while sitting in his arm-
chair.” Lord Holland died soon after, in his armchair as he
hacf prophesied, of water on the chest.

Then there was the affair of the eccentric Lord Camel-
ford, who fought his fatal duel in the grounds with Mr. Best.
He insisted on fighting because lie had heard that Mr. Best
was the best shot in England. Camelford missed, but Mr.
Best did not. Camelford fell, mortally wounded, and calling
Best to him, grasped his hand and gasped: “I am a dead
man! You ha\e killed me, but I freely forgive you.”

That affair was a little different in its ending to the duel
fought in the same grounds between Mr. Fox and Mr. Adam.
There had been a great hullabaloo, a few weeks before, about
the bad quality of the ammunition served out to the navy.
Fox received Adam's bullet in the chest, but it did not kill
him.. “By gad, sir«” exclaimed Fox, “it would have been all
over with me if we had not charged our pistols with Govern-
ment powder!”

You will observe that the history of Holland House con-
tains all the elements \\ hich make history’ worth reading.

84

CHAPTER VI

Ghosts of the West

T he west, the ancient Kingdoms of Alerlin and King
Arthur, and the principalities of the chieftain V Wales,
is the immemorial home of fairies and pixies, of hauntings
and warnings, of white and gliding figures and spirit voices
in the night.

One could fill a book with the legends of Cornwall alone,
and two books with those of Wales and, for that matter, a
whole librar\' with the fantasies and wild Imaginings which
take their root, as by right, in the bogs and gjens and amid
the misty hills of Ireland.

It is not my business to venture fir into realms of Irish
folk-lore, for that is a territoiy’ of its own, but I cannot for-
bear to give l\ere the diverting and highly up-to-date tales of

C.A.W.— 7 85

GHOSTS *OF THE WEST

a latter-day familiar of the fairies, 88-ycar-old* Mrs. Annie
Mooney, of Farushklin by Glenariffe in County Antrim.

Mrs. Mooney told her stoij' to my friend, /ir. Ryshworth
Fogg, a well-known Fleet Street, journalist, formerly on the
Dcdly Mail, aQd'* later assistant editor of Reuter features.
He was the author„of many of the official answers for the
B.B.C. Brains I’rihJt, and, twenty years ago, hit the head-
lines of the Daily Disfiatch with his story of Gef, the Talking
Mongoose of Doarlish Cashen, Isle of Mai^

Mr. Rushworth Fogg, writing of Mrs. Mooney, says:

It's true they could be “very vicious in their ways”. So Annie’s
mother told l^r that when anybody mentioned the fairies she
should “speak respectful” of them’ind say, “Fair mUy they come
and fair may they go.”

But that’s about three-quarters of a century ago, and the
neat little white-haired old lady in rimless spectacles is quite sure
that the “gende people” have abandoned North Antrim.

“I never saw a fairy,” she admitted, a litde regretfully, as she
let me into the little cottage at Cushendall, where she lives all *
alone. “But I heard them, always in the night time, and I saw the
light up in the hills. I would be about twelve, I should think,
then. It was like violin music, more than one violin, but it was
tunes I didn’t know and can’t remember. They did used to say
that the fairies Ifved in the litde caves among the stones that
came rolling down the mountain above the farm.

“But my father wouldn’t believe it. He said it was all non-
sense. Men are like that!”

Sh£ shook her head over such scepticism and glanced towards
her wireless set “Wireless now, that’s as wonderful as fairies. It
would make you believe in fairies.”

Mrs. Mooney knows a good deal about wireless. Since four
years ago, when she made her first broadcast about the making of
the quilt which covers her bed, she has been on the B.B.C.
Northern Ireland programme a number of times, usually talking
about her ijelovetf needlework, but occasionally bringing in the
fairy lore of her home district. She is probably the only old lady
who has j’ebuifed Wilfred Pickles; she steadfastly refused to

86

FAIRY CHILDREN

“Have a Qo” on Jiis programme, ffteling that her old friends on the
Northern Ileland programme might be hurt

“There’s^lm old saying,” slw told me, “that tiie fairies went
away the m^t of the Big Wind.‘ I don’t know when that was,
but when I wa^a girl, nearly everybody in Glenariffe was scared
of annoying them.

“If a mother went out of the house anchleft a small child, she’d
put tongs across the cradle to protect ^t fl’om the*fairies. Some-
times sl^ would put the tongs across the doorsill. They make a
Cross, and noth^g evil can pass. I’ve often seen mothers put meal
and salt on children’s heads to save thepi from being takefl."”

The little people preferred taking boys to girls, so in Glenariffe
in Mrs. Mooney’s young days, the boys were disguised in petti-
coats to ^ol them. Thif ^ ustom has persisted into more recent
times on the islands of the west.

What happened when the fairies “took” children.^ Mrs. Mooney
explained: “There used to be children then called ‘undergrowths’.
They didn't glow any bigger, and people said they were taken
by the fairies when they were young. You don’t see as many
‘undergrowths’ since the fairies left.”

Had Sir James Barrie heard of this effect of contact with the
little folk when he invented Peter Pan, ..he Boy who Never* Grew
Up? Mrs. Mooney, who has read and listened-in quite a lot,
was interested in this suggestion of mine and thought it quite
likely, “for there were fairies in Scotland, where he came from,
you know, as well as in Ireland.

“Our mothers,” she went on, “told •' we must n- ■ftr eat sloes,
because they were the fruits of the fairies, and we ni ist never eat
blackberries after Michaelmas Fair, which was September 28,
because after that they belonged to the fairies.”

Very' few people actually saw them, as they rarely came out
except at night. “But 1 once heard an old woman saying that a
wee woman came into her house and asked for a bowl of meal,”
recalled Mrs. Mooney. “The woman of the house said, ‘I don’t
know you.’ ‘Yes,’ said the wee woman, ‘1* live is that big skeagh
[thornbush] below the house,’ and then she realised ’twas a /airy
woman.

‘“Actually it was long before her birth — 1839I She called it the Bag
Wandt”— R.F.

87

GHOSTS Of the west

‘*The old people used to^leave oaten bread and/^new milk out
for the fairies. Nobody does that now, but therj(' are still some
people that believe in them yet^ '

Looking for Mrs. looney’s birthplace and tfce hillside where
she heard the music, I asked my way of a woman leaning over a
garden gate by *Jxe roadside in Glenariffe. She knew Mrs. Mooney
and about her hearing the music. ‘‘My own mother heard it too,*^
she remarked, in a mattf r-of-fact w^ay.

“I don’t believe in them. It’s all a Ipt of ould nonsense,” put
in her husband. Men, as Mrs. Mooney remar^ed, are like that!

Blit not all of them'.c In Cushendun, a few miles to the north,
Dan Hemon, a small, tubby, ex-ship’s carpenter who now works
as a handyman in his native village, told me the stpry of a local
farmer who deffed the little people ajd suffered for it. i.

“They used to live in thornbushes, ‘what* we call skeaghs,”
explained Dan. “Well, there was a man took a farm up above
Cushendun. A fine big man he was, John MacAirt, with bushy
black hair and a great moustache on him. He said there was no
such things as fairies, and that he’d cut down the skeagh he had
on his place. They warned him, but he took iin axe and chopped
it down.

^ “Well, the next morning when he woke up, his fine moustache
had fallen off on to his pillow, and when he looked into the glass
his hair was as white as snow, ‘’I’m not telling you a word of a lie,
for J saw it meself.”

While Dan H^rnon was speaking a tall, thin man in his sixties'
came ddWn the sunlit village street. “Dan McKillop,” said Mr.
Hemon, “and he’s another ship’s carpenter and the only man I
know, barring a little girl that’s dead now, that’s ever seen a fair\'.
Tell the gentleman about it, Dan.”

“I’d be seven or eight years old at the time,” related Dan
McKillop. “I was driving cows up above Glenariffe and I heard
some music beyant a hedge and a ditch. I climbed over the hedge
in me bare feet — ^we didn’t go in for boots and shoes much in
them days — and there was a little man, as high as your knee,
playing a fiddle. He had a stovepipe hat and a collar on.”

“What elsi?” I asked.

“Begob,” declared Mr. McKillop, “I never stopped to see. I
run for me life!”

88

“old WHlt'E-HAT”

n

And theik we leave the highly diverting — and who shall
disbelieve th«n?— tales of my friend Rush worth Fogg for a
very difjeren^ort of hauntii^ on a North Devon strand.
For this I am indebted to Mr. Vernon C. Boyle, of Westward
Ho, who sends several highly interesting* uptes concerning
superstitions in North Devon, whicl^ he contributed to
Volume LXXXIV of the Journal of the •Devonshire Associa-
tion for the Advancement Sf Science* Literature and Art. In
it Mr. Bo>1e wroi^:

My father, Vernon Boyle, born in 1859, used to speak of a
mythical character, OIJ White-hat, who ranged the beach along
the Northside, calling fo. .a passage to Appledore. He wore a
great white hat* Thiis was always at night. He seems to have
been doomed to make ropes out of sand ir. amongst the Dunes.
Capt. J. B Pile, aged 61 in 1949, has the following version:

“Jack the White-hat was about the Crow by night. He wore
a white hat with a lantern lashed to it. He seemed to be looking
for something. When he hailed an Appledore boat, ‘Hoy!'
people would r.ever wait, but hurry away, for they believed that
anyone who went ashore to White-hat would never get’ajvay
alive. There is a w'oman in Bideford today who is the grand-
daughter of Jack the White-hat, ’and possibly she can throw light
on the story.” ,

This legend is connected with the one abo«t Trr.rey spinning
ropes of sand (.fee Lady Rosaline Norihcote’s Devo ". . p. 222).

The Crow is the south point of Braunton Burrows, between
Taw and Torridge.

Mr. Vernon C. Boyle mentions another being which
haunts the North Devon coast; it is a giant bogy, with
which his mother (from Parracombe) used to scare the
children. Mr. (J. A. Shepherd, of Brixham, Jias also heard
of it, and it seems related to the “Cankobobus” mentioned
by “Q” in Troy Town.

Mr. Boyle goes on to give a most interesting account of
what is know^ as the Bible and Key Divination, >^'hich I have

GHOSTS 6f the west.

not heard of in any other part of the country* Mr. Boyle
quotes two local characters, the first Capt. }. Pile, aged 63, a
fisherman, of Bideford, whomAe records as s^^ng:

I don’t rememljer when I first heard of this but I recall that
it was often bl'ought up in parties before I was twen^. Our
people had, big fanjiRies and the Blackmores were very fond of
parties when I was a-oourting onf of their girk. There was no
drink but it was jolly. Some cousin*would say with a laugh,
“Let’s see if you young courting couples fcre ^oing to come
together” ^^i.e. marry).

Then a big key would be brought and all but its loop put into
the Bible at t^e passage in Ruth i, 61. The Bible was then
lashed up with twine to hold all •firmly. Then my sweetheart
and I had to put the tips of our forefinger dhder the loop and
so hold the Bible Suspended between us, whilst we recited the
passage in unison, repeating it after the cousin. This is the
passage, I know it by heart, it is what Ruth said:

“Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following
after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy
Gk>d my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be
buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death
part thee and me.”

Nobody was laughing while this w'as done; I think because
the words are so'beautiful and so solemn.

Whether it was nerves, or what, I don’t know, but my sweet-
heart and I could never complete the passage before the Book
seemed to slew and drop off. Yet we’ve been happily married
forty-six years. Other people could succeed, but not we two.

Mr. Boyle’s second witness is Capt. Tom Harris, aged 84,
of Brixham. The, captain has been a fisherman all his life,
and a staunch Salvation Army man. His story relates to a
time before htf knew Capt. Pile. Mr. Boyle writes:

The Key ^ras laahed into the Book at the passage in Ruth, as
told by Mr. Pile, but in Capt. Tom’s account it seems to have
been used only to detect a suspected liar or thief, in each case a

90

THJE POWIS CASTLE GHOST

boy. The ^My would be told to liold the Key himself, hanging
between his Wo forefinger tips. In every case (thye, I gathered)
the boy ha(^ i^emBled and coni^sed his ^ilt before the passage
was ev$n beguA

There is thus no need to impute superstition to the captain.
The psychological effect of reciting the solemn'words were relied
upon to impress the culprit strongly.

Xhe stosy of the ghr'st of Powis Castle, the great feudal
stronghold <X Cistell Coch, or “The Red Castle” on the
borders of Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, has often been
quoted, and misquoted, but a member of Lord Powis’s
family assures me that there is every reasop to believe that
it is true.

Probably the fullest and most authentic account of it was
given by Mr. J. C. Davies in that extremely rare book, seldom
obtainable o.itside libraries and private collections, The
Folklore of West and Mid Wales. This was published in
19 1 1 by The Welsh Gazette Office, 26 Bridge Street,
Aberystwyth, who ha\e very kindly gi\en me permission to
use these extracts. I'here Mr. Davies writes:

It had been for some time refrorted in the neighbourhood (of
Powis Castle) that a poor unmarried woman, who was a member
of the Methodist Society, and had become aerious under their
ministry, had seen and conversed with the apparitior 'f a gentle-
man, who had made a strange discover},' to her. Mr. lampson (a
preacher among the Methodists about the end of the eighteenth
century) being desirous to ascertain if there was any truth in the
story', sent for the woman, and desired her to give him an exact
relation of the whole affair from her own mouth, and as near the
truth as she possibly could.

She said she was a poor woman, who got her living by spin-
ning hemp or line; that it was customary for 4he farmers and
gentlemen of that neighbourhood to grow' a little hemp or line in
a comer of their fields for their own consumption, and as she was
a good hand at spinning the materials, ;-ie used to go from house
to house to, inquire for work; that her method w'as, where they

91

GHOSTS 6F the west

employed her, during her stay, to have meat, arfil drink, and
lodging (if ^e had occasion to sleep with them)/ for her work,
and what they pleased to give h|r besides.

Among other places, she happened to call oi^e^ay at Ihe Welsh
Earl of Powis^s country seat, called Redcastle, to inquire for
work, as she usually had done before. The quality were at this
time in Loi^on, ancPhad left the steward and his wife, with other
servants, as usual, to tajce care of ^leir country residence in their
absence. The steward’s wife set her t(^ work, and in^e evening
told her that she must stay all night with therii, as'they had more
work for h.T to do the 'sext day.

When bedtime arrived, two dr three serv^ants in company, with
each a lighted candle in her hand, conducted her tq her lodging.
They led her to a ground room, \^h a boarded flaDr, and two
sash windows. The room was grandl/ furifished, and had a
genteel bed in onenrorner of it. They had made her a good fire,
and had placed her a chair and a table before it, and a large
lighted candle upon the table. They told her that was her bed-
room, and that she might go to sleep when she pleased. They
then wished her a good night and withdrew altogether, pulling
the door quickly after them, so as to hasp the spring-sneck in the
brass lock that was upon it.

When they were gone, she gazed awhile at the fine furniture,
under no small astonishment^ that they should put such a poor
person as her in so^rand a room, and bed, with all the apparatus
of fire, chair, table, and a candle. She was also surprised at ther
circumstance of the servants coming so many together, with each
of them a candle. However, after gazing about her some little
time, she sat down and took a small Welsh Bible out of her
pocket, which she always carried about with her, and in which
she usually read a chapter — chiefly in the New Testament — before
she said her prayers and went to bed.

While she was treading she heard the door open, and turning her
head, saw a gentleiyan enter in a gold-laced hat and waistcoat,
and the rest of his dress corresponding therewith. I think she was
vfty particulp in describing the rest of his drtss to Mr. Hampson,
and he to me at tlte time, but 1 have now forgot the other par-
ticulars. He walked down by the sash-window to the corner of
the room a/id then returned. When he came to the first window in

92

“FOLLOW ME*'

his return ^he boCtom of which was nearly breast high, he rested
his elbow or the bottom of the window and the side of his face
upon the p^in of Ihe hand, an^ stood in that leaning posture for
some tiine, witlf^his side partly towards fier. She looked at him
earnestly to see if she knew him, but, though from her frequent
intercourse with them, she had a personal knowledge of all the
present family, he appeared a stranger to Mr, She supposed after-
wards that he stood in this r^^anner to eicourage her to speak; but
as^she did oOt, after sqme little time he walked off, pulling the
door after Iihn as|the servants had done before.

She began now to be much alarmed concluding it td^be an
apparition, and that they had put her there on purpose. This was
really the qase. The room, it seems, had been disturbed for a long
time, so that nobody coul<i#»leep peacabiy in it,*and as she passed
for a verj'^ seriofls wofnan, the servants took it into their heads to
put the Methodist and Spirit together, to^see what they could
make of it Startled at this thought, she rose from her chair, and
kneeling down by the oedside, commenced to say her prayers.

While she was praying he came in again, walked round the
room, and came close behind her. She had it on her mind to
speak, but when she attempted it she was so ver>' much agitated
that she could not utter a word. He walked out of the room ag^in,
pulling the d(X)r after him as before.

She begged that God would strengthen her and not suffer her
to be tried f>eyond what she could bear. She recovered her spirits,
and thought she felt more confidence and resf)lutior. and deter-
mined if he came in again she would speak to him.

He presently came in again, walked round and camt behind her
as before; she turned her head and said:

“Pray, sir. who are you, and what do you want?*'

He put up his finger, and said, “Take up the candle and follow
me, and I will tell >ou.”

She got up, took up the candle, and followed him out of the
room. He led her through a long boarded passage till they came
to the door of another room, which he opened ^nd w^ent in. It
was a small room, or what might be called a large closet,

‘‘As the room was small, and I belie^’ d hhn to be a Spii i, she
said, “I stopped at the door; he turned and said, ‘Walk in, I will
not hurt you.* So I walked in.

93

GHOSTS OF THE WEST

“He said; ‘Observe what ^do.’

“I said,

“He stooped, and tore up o|(c of the boaVda of, the floor, and
there appeared under it a box with an iron hanj^e in the*lid.

"He said, ‘Do you sec that box?’

“I said, ‘Yes,! do.’

"He thei^ stepped* to one side of the room, and showed me a
crevice in the wall^ vHjiere he sa^d a key was hid tihat would
open it

"He said, *11)18 bmc and key must be takeniMt^l^ sent to the
Ewfin London* (nanung the Earl, and his place of residence in
the ci^). He said, ‘Will you seelt done?*

"I said, ‘I will do my best to get it done.*

"He said, ‘D&, and I will troublr^fhe house no moae.*

"He then walked out of the room and left !ne. [He seems to
have been a very civil Spirit, and to have been very careful to
affri^t her as little as possible.] I stq>ped to the room door and
set up a shout. The steward and his wife, and the other 8er\'anu>
came to me immediately, all clung together, with a number of
lights in their hands. It seems they ail had been waiting to see tlie
issue of the interv’iew betwixt me and the apparition, lltey asked
lye what was the matter?

“I told them the foregoing circumstances, and showed them the
box. The steward durst not meddle with it, but his wife had more
coufage, and with*the help of the other servants, lugged it out, and
found the kc)'.’’

She sdid by their lifting it appeared to be pretty heavy, but that
she did not see it opened, and, therefore, did not know what it
contained; perhaps money, or writings of consequence to the
family, or both.

They took it away with them, and she then went to bed and
slept peaceably till the morning. It appeared afterwards that they
sent the box to the; Earl in London, with an account of the manner
of its discovery and [>y whom.

The Earl setit down orders immediately to his steward to inform
the poor woman who had been the occasion oi this discovery, that
if she would come and reside in his family, she should be comfort-
ably provided for, for the remainder of her days; or, if she did not
choose to i^pside constantly with them, if she wouldjlet them know

94

THE GilOSTL*y LADY

when she granted (assistance, she should be liberally supplied, at
his Lordship’s expense, as long as he lived.

And Mr. |iampA>n said it a known fact in the neighbour-
hood tlfat she h|id been so supplied front his Lordship’s family
from the time the affair was said to have happened, and continued
to be so at the time she gave Mr. Hampson thi^ account.

Another ghost, which one feel^the Wdsh ma/ fairly claim
as th^ and one ^ullly as autTtentic as the Ghost of
Fowls Casw^s the apparition of the Ghostly Lady who was
slud to haunt H.M.S. Asp, an Admiralty survey vessel, Ixised
on Pembroke Dockyard, whiclf did much survey work on the
Welsh coast in the sixties and seventies. Old seamen in
Pembroke *Dock still speSk of the Asp antf its ghost with
undoubted awe.*The*Pem6rofee County Guardian, on Feb-
ruary 1 6th, 1901, in pursuit of this gh 5 st, unearthed and
republished the following letter written to the editor on
March 15th, 1867, by Captain Aldridge, r.n., former Com-
mander of the As * . Captain Aldridge wrote :

March 15th, 1867.

My dear Sir,

I herewith readily comply with your request as far as I am able,
respecting the unaccountable ‘‘apJ)arition” on board my ship. Call
it ghost or what you will, still I assure you that which I amjgoing
to relate is what really did take place, and much 2S I w is. and am,
a sceptic in ghost stories, I must confess myself com; “tely at a
loss to account by natural causes for that which dm actually'
occur. Many years having elapsed since I retired from active
8er\'ice, I am unable to recollect all the dates with exactness, but
I will give them as far as I can remember them.

In the year 1850, the Asp was given me by the Admiralty as a
surveying vessel. On taking possession of her^ the Superintendent
of the Dockyard, where she lay remarked to me, “Do you know.
Sir, your ship is said 10 be haunted, and I don’t know if you will
get any of the Dockyard men to work on her.” I, of course, smiled,
and I said, “I don’t care for ghosts, and daro say I "shall ger her all
to rights fast enough.”

I engaged the shipwrights to do the necessary repairs to the

95

GHOSTS *OF THE WEST

vessel, but before they had \ycen working in her a week they came
to me in a body and begged me to give the vessel up as she was
haunted and could never brii^ anything btit ill-lpck. However,
the vessel was at leng^th repaired, tmd arrived iipsafety id the River^
Dee, where she was to commence her labours. After my tea in
the evening, I |^enerally sat in my cabin and either read to myself
or had an officer ofimine (who is now master of the Magician) to
read aloud to me: on«such"occa^ons we used frequently to be
interrupted by strange noises, often sych as would be causird by
a drunken man or a person staggering abou^ whfch appeared to
issue froni the after (da ladies^) cabin.

The two cabins were only separated from each other by the
companion ladder, the doors faced each other, so /hat from my
cabin I could sJe into the after one.*^here was no communication
between either of them and the other paVts oPthe ship, excepting
by the companion-ladder, which no one could ascend or descend
without being seen from my cabin. The evening shortly after our
arrival in the Dee, the officer I mentioned was reading to me in
my cabin when all at once his voice was drowned by a violent and
prolonged noise in the aft cabin. Thinking it must be the steward
he called out, “Don’t make such a noise, steward,’’ and the noise
ceased. When he began to read again the noise also recommenced.

“What are you doing, steward — making such a noise for.^”

he cried out, and taking the candle rushes into the next cabin. But
he came back quicker than he wxnt, saying there w'as nobody there.

He recommei^ced reading, and once more began the mysterious
noise. Pfelt sure there was some drunken person there whom my
c^cer had overlooked, and accordingly rose and looked myself,
and to my veiy di.sagrceable surprise found the cabin empty!

After this e\’ening, the noises became very' frequent, varying in
kind and in degree. Sometimes it was as though the scats and
lockers were being banged about, sometimes it sounded as though
decanters and tunjblers were being clashed together. During these
disturbances the vessel was lying more than a mile off shore.

One evening I and the above named officer went to drink tea at
a-friend’s house at Queen’s Ferry, near Chester, the vessel at tfie
time being lashed lo the lower stage opposite Church's Quay. We
returned on board together about lo p.m. While descending the
companion ladder, I distinctly heard someone rusl\ from the after

96

‘‘l HAVE CAyCHT THE GHOST''

cabin into ?hc fort cabin. I stopped the oflScer who was behind
me at the top of the ladder and whispered to him, '^Stand still, I
think I have jaughlfthe ghost.” *

I thei! descended into my cabin, took mV sword, which always
hung over my bed, and placed it drawn in his hand saying; “Now

, allow no one to pass you; if anyone attenljjts to escape cut

him down, 1 will stand the consequences.”

I then returned to the cab|p, struck a ^glit and searched eveiy-
whjrc, bu^i^ing couljJ 1 find to account for the noises I had
heard, thougtW dy lare solemnly that never did I feci more certain
of anything in my life than that I should find a man there. So
there was nothing to be done But to repeat for the hundredth
time; “Wel^ it is the ghost again!”

Often \Wien lying in my tied at night I have rfeard noises close
to me as though ?ny drawers were being opened and shut, the top
of my washing-stand raised and banged down again, and a bed
which stood on the opposite side of my cabin, pulled about; while
of an evening 1 often heard while sitting in my cabin a noise as
though a percassion cap were snapped close to my head; also verj’
often (and I say it with godly and reverential fear) I have been
sensible of the presence of something invisible about me, and
could have put iny hand, so to say, on it, or the spot where I fglt
it was; and all this occurred, strai^ge to say, without my feeling in
the least alarmed or caring about it, except so far that I could not
understand or account for what I felt and heard.

One night, when the \essel was at anchor in M^rU n Poads, I was
awoke by the cjuarterniaster calling me and begging m« i come on
deck as the look-out man had rushed to the lower dc^.k, saying
that a figure of a lady was standing on the paddle box pointing
with her finger to Heaven. Feeling angry, I told him to send the
look-out man on deck again and keep him there till daybreak, but
in attempting to carr\* my orders into execution the man went into
violent convulsions, and the result was I had^to go mvself upon
deck and remain there till morning.

This apparition was often seen after this, «nd always as
described with her finger pointing towards Heaven.^

One Sunday afternoon while lying ir thedfaverfordw^e^t river
opposite to Lawrenny, the crew being ah on shore, and I being at
church, my steward (the only man oti board) whilst descending the

97

GHOSTS’OF THE WEST

companion ladder was spoken to by an unseen voice. He inunedi*
ately fell dj)wn mth fright, and I found his appearance so altered
that I really scarcely knew hinV

He begged to be i^llowed his discharge and to be lantSed as soon
as possible, to which I felt obliged to consent as he could not be
persuaded to t^ain on board for the night

The sto^ of thebhip being haunted becoming known on shore,
the clergyman of llawr-enny calle<j on me one day and begged me
to allow him to question the crew, which he accbrdingly did. He
seemed very much impressed by what he heairi; h^^eemed to view
the' matter in a serious light and said that his opinion was that
“some troubled spirit must be lingering about the vessel”.

During the ^ears that I commanded the Asp I lojit many of my
men who ran Way on being refused their discharge; and a great
many others I felt forced to let go, so great wal their fear, one and
all telling me tha same tale, namely that at night they saw the
transparent figure of a lady pointing with her finger up to Heaven.
For many years I endeavoured to ridicule the affair as I was often
put to considerable inconvenience by the loss of hands, but to no
purpose. I believe that when the officers went out of the vessel •
after dark, none of the crew would have ventured into the cabin
fin any account.

One night I was awoke fr^ my sleep by a hand, to all sensa-
tions, being placed on my leg outside the bedclothes. I lay still
foe a moment to satisfy myself of the truth of what I felt, and
then grabbed at it, but caught nothing. I rang my bell for the
quarterfnaster to come with his lantern, but found nothing.

This occurred to me several times, but on one occasion as I lay
wide awake a hand was placed on my forehead. If ever a man’s
hair stood on end mine did then. I sprang clean out of bed : there
was not a sound. Until then I had never felt the least fear of the
ghost or whatever you like to call it. In fact I had taken a kind of
pleasure in listening to the various noises as I lay in bed, and
sometimes when the noises were very loud I would suddenly pull
my bell for the look-out man and then listen attentively if I could
Hear the sound of a footstep or attempt to escape, but there never
was any,*and I would hear the look-out man walk from his post to
my cabin when I would merely ask him some questions as to the
wind and^eather.

98

“she WAJ.KED THROUGH THE MUSKET”

At length in 1^57, the vessel r^uiring repairs, was ordered
alongside the dockyard wall at Pembrqke. The §rst night the
sentry statioped near the ship Aw (as he afterwards declared) a
lady mount the paddle box holding up her^hand towards Heaven.
She then stepped on shore and came along th; ^ath towards him
when he brought his musket to the charge “who goes there?” But
the figure walked through the musket, upoQ which he dropped it
and ran for the guard-hous*. The next sentry saw all this take
plate and of? his gtin to alarm the guard. The figure then
glided past a thirfl sentry who was placed near the ruins ofc Pater
old Church, and who watched h«r, or it, mount the top of a grave
in the old churchyard, point with her finger to Heaven, and then
stand till s|ft vanished fron^is sight.

The sergeant af the guar 3 came with rank and file to learn the
tale, and the fright of the sentries all along tlji; Dockyard wall was
so great that none would remain at their post unless they were
doubled, wmch they were, as may be seen by the “Report of
guard” for that night.

Singularly enough, since that, the ghost has never been heard of
again on board the Asp, and I never heard the noises which before
had so ince.ssantly annoyed me.

The only clue I could ever find to account for my vessel being
haunted is as follows: Some yeare previously to my ha^^ng her,
the Asp had been engaged as a mail packet between Port Patrick
and Donaghadee. After one of her trips, the paasengers having aif
disembarked, the stewardess on going inlu the ladies’ bin found
a beautiful girl with her throat cut lying in one of t..e sleeping
berths quite dead ! How she came by her death no one could tell
and, though, of course, strict invesugations were commenced,
neither who she was nor where she came from or anything about
her was ever discovered.

The circumstances gave rise to much talk,, and the vessel was
remanded by the authorities, and she was, not again used until
handed over to me for sut^eying ser>ice. Hert ends my t^e,
which I have given in all truth. Much as I know one gets laughed
at for believing in ghost stories you a ' welcome to»makc what
use you please with this true account ot the apparition on board
the Asp.

99

GHOSTS •OF THE WEST

Many of the Welsh ghost stories quoted by Mr. J. C.
Davies and qthers bear, if not all the marks of authenticity, at
least the honourable scars of antiquity. There is scarcely a
valley or hill, a mountain pass or ancient wood clinging to its
scarred hillside v'hich has not its legend of the fairies, the
Tylweth Teg, or of , witches or hauntings or ghostly voices in
the night. '

And if you have walked alone In the mist ot, in the dusk of
evening down a manless hillside, with the (^5dk of ravens
hollow in the gloom^and passed through the glimmering
aisles of an ancient wood of twisted birches and mountain
ash, where long beards of silvery moss swing pi the damp
wind and no bird sings, you will diot doubt that oUch places
breed ghosts and visions.

Those who live in the solitudes of the mountains, whether
in West Wales or Wester Ross, whether on a Hebridean Isle
or amid the shining seas of many-coloured grasses which
cover an Irish bog, become creatures of fantasy, the prey to
imaginings born of the wild magic of the scenery about them.

We may allow all this, but now and then, particularly when
the teller is a Welshman or an Irishman, the credible becomes
the incredible, the possible the rankly impossible. There is
always the man who will ini’ent a ghost story simply for the
importance it bestows upon him as the teller. Such a one was
the vivid‘Celt who, telling Mr. J. C. Davies of a spirit he had
encountered on horseback, launched into the following ver-
sion of a story which has been told in differing forms in
almost every country in the world. Said this Welsh Ananias ;

I was going home one evening from my work from Ros y Wlad,
and had to go through Rosmerherih. That place you know is a
terrible spot for its ghosts. People say that they are seen there in
broad daylight As‘to myself 1 did not see them in the da)'time,
but many a time was I kept there all night by lack-a-Lantcrns.

I saw 9 gRoSt in the form of a cat there also, and when I began
to strike him he disappeared in a blazing fire. But now for the
gentleman. I was near the ‘spot where I had seen the cat when I

100

“the DE^VIL WIMSELF”

heard the sound of a horse coming after me. I jumped one side
to make room for him to pass; but when he came (^posite me he
did not go forward ^ single pace«faster than myself. When I went
on slowly, he went slowly; •when I weht fast, he went fast
“Good night,” said I at last, but no answer. Then I said it was
a very fine night, but the genUeman on horsebadc did not seem to
take any notice of what I said. Then thinking that he might be
an Englishman (the niar was speaking ii^Welsh), I said in English
“Good nigljt”,^ut he tor", no notice of me still.

By this tint* I ^was beginning to perspire and almost ready to
fall down with fright, hoping to get rid of him, as I now perceived
that he was the Devil himself appearing in the form of a gentle-
man. I coiild think from the sound of the saddle and the shining
stirrups that the saddle Wu«: a new one. On we went along the
dark narrow lant till we came to the turnpike road, when it be-
came a I’ttle lighter, which gave me courage to turn my eyes to see
what kip'l of a man he was. The horse looked like a soldier’s
horse, a splendid one. and his feet like the feet of a calf, without
any shoes under them, and the feet of the gentleman in the
stirrups were also like the feet of a calf. My courage failed me to
look what his head and body were like.

On we went nil we came to the cross-ioad. I had heard man^' a
time that a ghost leaves eveiybodv there, \^'ell, to the cross-road
we came. But ah! I heard the sound of the ground as if it were
going to rend, and the heavens going to fall upon my head; and
in this sound I lost sight of him (the Spirit). How he went awSST
I know not, nor the direction he went.

We may dismiss this amusing vapouring for what it is
worth, but no one can disregard the two stories related to me
in a letter by Mr. J. M. Watkins, of Great House, Llantilio
Pertholey, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. Mr. Watkins
writes:

With reference to your requests for legends in The Western
Mail, I can give you a number; some, however, arc real. The^rst
I will relate is the one of the cobbler in the woods of.Rowlestone
in South Herefordshire. My father ut^d to stay with his grand-
parents on a remote farm in South Herefordshire and in this

O.A.W. — 8 lOI

GHOSTS ‘OF T^j[E WEST

particular wood, which was* in a dingle, a smril stream ran through
the iniddle.,^t dead of night a sound exactly the same as of a cob-
bler tapping shoes would plainly be heard, ind gnjwn-ups as well
as children were terfified to go ^ywhere near the place at night.
Children in the area who misbehaVed were often threatened that
they would btf taken to the cobbler if they did not mend their
ways. Of Recent yekrs nothing has been heard of the phenomena.

The next stoty 1 have to relate is something that my father
actually saw. He is a well-known Mofunouthshii^^iller and still
operates the old watermill known as Imley,MiSC My mother,
who was a devout Roman Catholic was at home this night with us
when my father took a w’alk along the railway line to a remote
spot, about a quarter of a mile away to a place ofv^n frequented
by courting cobples in the summer C/me.

It was late November at the time and a very dark night When
he came to the spot he walked up the railway embankment and
looked over on to the spot and saw a most beautiful lady dressed
in white. He thought at first that it was a local school teacher
who often frequented the spot in summer with her boy friend. To
his amazement the figure started to glide slowly away.

He climbed through the wire fence as he could sec that this was
out of the ordinary. The figure kept out of his reach and dis-
appeared in the corner of thf field which adjoins the millstream
and no human figure could have got away in like manner. When
herarrived back ii\ the house he had no need to tell us that he had
seen something^not of this world. His hair stood up and he waS
obviously frightened, although usually a man with cast-iron nerves.

My mother kept calm throughout as she must have known that
it w^ the sign of death which often appeared to the Vaughan
family (she was of the same family as Cardinal Vaughan). About
5 weeks after this she died, a young woman of 36 years of age.
About two years previously to this I remember her coming home
after visiting her mother and she was weeping bitterly. I re-
member her telling my father that she heard a strange knock or
knocking on ber mother’s front door, after he had enquired why
she was crying. She forecast her mother’s death which took place
not man^ weeks after these strange happenings.

If you read the book on the Ufe of Cardinal Vaughan, he men-
tions in ^e opening chapters these strange happenings which

102

IN A.NBW ‘VILLA

many devoted nifembers of the f^ily have experienced. The
Vaughans are, of course, of the same family as ^(^er Vaughan
who saved King’s life at the batde of Agincourt.

Another correspondent, Mrs. Lilian Youngman of Rouge-
mont. Thorn Park Terrace, Mannamead,*Pl)rmouth, sends
me a story which she declares is true,* and wjj^ich has the
added and unusual advant^e of ’having occurred, not in the
romantic s»rrhundings*of an ancient house, or on a lonely
hillside, but A^thm the prosaic walls of a newly built villa, on
a new housing estate in WestQn-Super-Mare. Mrs. Young-
man, who assures me that these happenings took place in
1902, shoijfy after she vva% married, writes as follows :

I was living m Weston-Super-Mare with my husband, a com-
mercial traveller, and my baby girl who was nearly a year old. She
was te'*tli'"" and ven' restless, so I took her into bed with me.
Her father was away travelling. I had a nightlight on the mantel-
piece to give a subdued light. Suddenly I saw the figure of a
woman come through the closed door — walk the length of the
room and disappear out of the window. The house was a new one
built on allotment ground.

1 tried to find out if any tragedy had happened on the ground
nearby — but it was a new road and all the people were strangers.
I had a little legacy left me at the end of two years, and moved
three doors farther up the road. This house I Ubug’"

The former house was soon let to another tenant, v . o, however,
did not stay long in it. I asked her why she had removed to the
other side of the road, a much inferior house — *Jid shg replied
that her children were afraid to stay in th“ house by themselves.
She said that in the room upstairs loud noises were heard like the
lashing of a whip and the butt end of a child’s gun was found on
the floor, which did not belong to one of het* children. So I con-
clude that the form a woman whom I bad seen was a woman
who had been murdered — and that her ghost haunted the scene
of the tragedy.

Mrs. Lilian Youngman has a furtuer remarkable story to
tell of an occurence which took place in the ladies’ bathing

103

GHOSTS or rnjt wbst

pool « Plymouth in i88j.*The ttory, in her own words i,

t&loWoWs

One morning in November I went to bathe on The Hoe. I was
aixompanied by piy school friend; we were both 14 years of age
and good swimmers. It was a dismal morning — no breeze and
the water yeiy caly. We went down the grassy slope by the
Smeaton Tower and dotvn tMfe steps leading to the bathing houses,
of w’^hich we had a key of one house.

Wf met no one on Ae Hoe but at the bottom (ft the steps near
the bathing houses I ^happened to look up and saw a woman
looking over the wall — looking at the steps at the farther end of
the pool.

We undressed, and ran round thrt? edge of t^e pool and swam
out to sea. We did not like the water that morning as it was too
calm, so we soon returned to the edge of the pool. But instead of
running round the pool we thought wc would swim across the
pool. We both went in together with a big splash, at the point
where we had seen the woman gazing. On the way back I saw a
hat floating. I brought it in. It was like the hat the woman wore
who had been gazing into the pool. Then w'e dressed and went
home to breakfast.

I did not go to school that^ morning, but my friend did, and
during the morning a policeman came and took her to the mor-
tuary. A woman’s body had been found floating just at the spot
where we had gfme in with a splash. She could not identify the*
woman because she had no hat.

An inquest was held and it seemed this woman had been seen
wearing some very lovely rings on her fingers — but the rings were
missing when her body was found. The verdict was “found
drowned”. But I conclude that a man had murdered the woman
for the sake of her rings and then thrown her body into the water
at the point where my friend and I had gone in with a great
splash, and this caused the body to rise to the surface; also that
it was the ghoft of this woman whom my friend and I saw looking
oi^r the wall

Scotland is rich in legends of kelpies or water spirits
which, in farious forms, are said to haunt almost every

104

THE. ABERYSTWYTH MERMAID

Highland river aftd loch, whilst Wales and Ireland have
their own versions of the same sort of watery ghosts,
J)ut legeyds of mermaids on the British coast are extremely
rare.

These sirens of the Aegean Sea can sciroely be blamed for
having fought shy of the chill waters of fhe British seas. No
one can imagine any mermaid, with the least esthetic care for
her appearance, disporting tierself, fof example, on an Essex
mucf-flat, or basking on a Hebridean rock lashed by Atlantic
rollers. The Irish have a crop of them, probably seals' if the
truth were known.

Yet, there is one remarkable record, duly set out by Mr.
Davies in ^lis Folk Lore a/ West and Mid Wales, which is
perhaps the fullJst account extant of the alleged appearance
of a mermaid on our coast. The surprising thing about it is
that no entCi|.i ’sing prblicity agent for the town of Aberyst-
wyth has yet sought to revive this seductive lady not only as
a holiday attraction, but as a counterblast to the Loch Ness
Monster.

According to Mr. Davies ;

In the month of July, 1826, a fanner from the parish of Llan-
uwchaiarn, about three miles from Abeiystwyth, whose hguse is
within 300 feet of the seashore, descended the jock, vhen the aei*
was shining beautifully upon the sea, and he saw a w nan (as he
thought) washing herself in the sea within a stone’s thiow of him.
At first, he modestly turned back; but after a moment’s reflection
thought that a woman would rot go so far out into the Sea, as it
w’as flooded at the time, and he was certain that the water was
six feet deep in the spot where he saw her standing.

After considering the matter, he threw himself down on his face
and crept on to the edge of the precipice from which place he had
a good view of her for more than half an hous- After scrutin-
ising her himself, he crept back to call his family to see.this
wonderful sight.

After telling them what he had seen, he directed them from the
door where to go and to creep near*the rock as he had done. Some

105

GHOSTS OF TI(B WEST

of them went when they wehf only half dressfcd, for it was early in
the morning, and they had only just got up from bed. Arriving at
the spot, they lodced at her for about ten ihinutes, as the fanner
was calling his wife and the younger child.

When the wife came on, she did* not throw herself down as the

0

others had doifle, but walked on within sight of the creature; but
as soon as.the meilnaid saw her, she dived into the water, and
swam away till she wa% aboitt the game distance from them as she
was when she was first seen. The w^ole family*, husband, awife,
children, menservants and maidservants, altogether twelve in
numlier, ran along the^hore for more than half a mite, and during
most of that time, they saw her*in the sea, and sometimes her head
and shoulders were upwards out of the water.

There was a*large stone, more thAi a yard in hciglft., in the sea,
on which she stood when she was first seen. Site was standing out
of the water fronf her waist up, and the whole family declared
that she was exactly the same as a young woman of about i8 years
of age, both in shape and stature. Her hair was short, and of a
dark colour; her face rather handsome, her neck and arms
were like those of any ordinary woman, her breast blameless
and her skin whiter than that of any person they had seen before.
• Her face was towards the shore. She bent herself down
frequently, as if taking up wat^, and then holding her hand before
her face for about half a minute. When she was thus bending
herself, there was to be seen some black thing as if there was a tail
'fuming up behind her. She often made some noise like sneezing,*
which cabsed the rock to echo.

‘ The fanner who had first seen her, and had the opportunity of
looking at her for some time, said that he had never seen but very
few women so handsome in appearance as this mermaid.

A gentleman of West Wales, a native of Cardigan who has
written extensively on the legends and country customs of
that remote ai^ charming countryside, sends me, in a long
an<^ discursive letter, a number of notes and records which
give such gn ’everyday picture of the survival of legend and
belief that I think his letter worth giving almost in full. He
begins by s^ing that:

WILLS-0*-T»E- WISP

The Wiil-o^-th^-Wisp or Jack-o^-Lantern is very common
around here. I have seen it on hot summer nigt||t8 at Cenarth,
near Newcastle Erflyn; on the Cardigan Marshes (a mile outside
this town), and down at NeVern, near Newport, Pcmbs.

North Pembrokeshire and South Cardiganshire were, prior to
the first war (1914), rather given to certain sufNerstitious beliefs.
On the night of the new moon, many old pt:ople wo|ild not go out
of doors (I was told). Fricjay th^j 13!^ — was always a ‘‘scare^^
day; no wbitrtlowers (c^pecially snowdrops) allowed in the house;
bad luck indeid if you saw a white horse without a rider; and of
course many old mansions were credited*with a ghost or two.

To hear seagulls at night, or an owl in the middle of summer,
or see fewer than three black lambs in springtime, not to mention
one crow •or magpie, was ccuunted really bad lucK. There is still in
some parts of South Wales a rhyme that goes, “One for sorrow,
two for joy, three meet a girl and four meet a boy” (referring to
birds w'ber. :cen throurh a window or when out for a stroll).

The Candle Corpse (in Welsh; Canwyll Corph) has often been
“seen” floating down the river, and the “Hounds of Death” (Cwn
Marwolaeth or Cwn Angladd), “have been seen and heard” tear- •
ing up the street or lonely countr}* road w^hen someone lay very
ill. And if six jackdaws or other “black birds” are seen flying
around or near a house, then De!ith is near someone in the family.

But for the past thirty years or so, these old superstitions have
“died out”, the modern scientific age having disproved and dis-
pelled so much that our grandparents ret?arde<>as ‘“»^‘'rpel”.

But one strange belief among the adult countiy^f* seems to
remain; if a robin or any other small bird flies into a room,
look out tor bad news.

Silver coins are still “turned over” at sight of a new moon;
parsley plants are not transplanted, a certain “tempting of Provi-
dence” if this is done, and indeed there are cases of young people
having been taken ill and died, and it transpised that someone had
removed parsley plants just previously.

Walking under a ladder and asking for No. *13 in a raffle, is
quite common today hereabouts, and everyone^ reads Sunday
papers; (35 years ago this brought ill ck!). Strangely enough,
although Cardigan Castle goes back to pre-Norman times (under
Prince Cadwgan ab Blcddyn and Prince Rhj^ ap Gruffydd, who

107

GHOSTS OF THE WEST

tried and succeeded later to*8teni the Normah invasion), I am not
aware of apy ghost stories, though there are tales told of its
“awful dungeons”. William If and Edwarcl I st^ed there, and
what stories are told*about the ofd place, are surely historical.

. There are, however, three places* near here, which in my young
days were believed to be haunted. (Today, the young folk sneer
at such tall^>)

These places are: « DavM’s ^ool (Pwll Dafydd), on the
Cardigan-Llangoedmor road; Feidir»LlandudiA:h,«>on the St.
Dogmells-Cardigan road; and Pentood Isaf-Troedyrhiw road,
just outside Cardigan Town.

At certain spots on the above three roads, the ghost of a high-
wayman on a white horse has “appeared” — but str^ge to relate,
since the end ^f World War I, tRese hauntings s^m to have
vanished; I recollect hearing that every NewTear’s Eve on the
Llantrisant Town-^Beddau road (between Llantrisant and Pont}'-
pridd, in East Glamorgan), the ghost of a “Dashing Cavalier” on
horseback — all in white — with flashing sword and ficiy' eyes
appeared, and it is said many old folks would not walk that road
at night in olden days. The tale has come down from Civil War
days, but the youngsters of today laugh at all these quaint yarns.
• I heard my mother once or tw'ice relate the storj' of a North
Pembroke Squire in the early* 1800’s, who had hypnotic or mes-
meric powers, and who, finding some poor country folk stealing
potatoes from his fields, “put the ’flucnce on them” and kept them
nigging away fo# a week without pause or rest, the Squire supply-*
ing the potato sacks. Many old folk, now dead, told me this story
was perfectly true. Another stoiy was about the School of
Black Magic in Haverfordwest, Pembroke. (1 was once informed
that there were six of these Schools in S. Wales and several
in Lincolnshire and the East Coast, in the late 1700’s and early
1800’s.)

Now, I believe Jthe well-educated people who went periodically
to “study magic” at these schools, could perform wonderful
things. Here if another story:

^y moth^ and grandmother were walkitig along the lonely
Newport'Cardlgan road one autumn evening, when “from no-
where” a well-known lady appeared and walked with them into
town. This old lady had be%n away at the Haverfprdwest School

’“SOBBING HER HfART AWAY”

for some weeks ariti yet she was able to tell my grandmother that
she had lost a prayer book and that she would “put a spell” on
the person who ha8 “taken it ftom her pew”. My grandmother
begged Ihc old lady to do nothing of the kUid^ and wondered how
she knew, as she had told nobody outside her own family about the
book. The old lady, however, said she would**‘compel” the thief
to return the book and that on their returh to town, my granny
and mother would find her^ waiting at^th^ir door with it And
when thej^re^fthed homr^in the dawn, the woman who had taken
the prayer bo%k was indeed there waiting to hand it back, and
sobbing her heart away with remorse.

My own personal experience i§ this : I was having music lessons
with a Iadj4 in Cardigan whose husband, a cripple, was reputed to
have the fhagical sense of f location”, i.e. he cdlild tell where to
find anything of value which had been lost. My mother lost a
silver-back clothes-brush and that was in th^f winter of 1910.

I casually mentioned this to the old gendeman when, in the
following summer, I had gone in to have a chat with him in his
garden. At first he simply told me to have another search, but a
week later, after a solemn promise to tell nobody but my mother,
at least during his lifetime, he told me to put my hand in a gap
in our garden hedge. I rushed home, a mile or so from his house,
and pushing away the moss and w’eeds, I located the brush, all
damp and mildewed. My mother was amazed when I told her. I
kept my promise, but strangely enough, after the old chap’^death
ten years later, it was said that a heap of ashe%was found on the
floor of a small room adjoining his bedicK^m, and it is -esumed to
this day that he had burned some old books and papei . on magic.

Others remember his strange “faculty” for locating lost
property. I sent a detailed account of this weird experience to the
National Librarj^ some years ago.

We may end these ghosts of the West Adth the charming
story told me by Mrs. A. L. Pittaway of Forjje Row, Aber-
tillery, Monmouthshire, concerning the ghost of an amiable
old gentleman who for many years haunted a^cottige in
Hough Wood, Herefordshire, in whi n Mrs. Pittaway spent
many years of the earlier part of her life. The cottage lay at

111

GHOSTS, OF T^E WEST

the side of the wood and the garden adjoihed the wood*. In a
letter to me ^rs. Pittaway says :

We did not mind jcarrying water a meadow and a half away fol"
drinking and going a mile for oil for the lamps, but we had not
been there long before we heard tapping on the window and door.
Footsteps from th^gate passed the window and door, then went
on to a shed, and *aft|^r a t'hile the footsteps came back. They
stopped at the door, and the latch was gifted.

We expected someone to walk in, but the doqjr did not open. 1
went to til'.’ door, there was no one there.

Honeysuckle was growing by the door, and Mother said that the
wind made it knock the windows and door. So sh^ cut back the
branches by tlte windows and doorf and said, “It wiR be all right
now.”

But that night, «>itting around the fire, we children reading and
mother sewing, we again heard the footsteps come from the gate
to the window, the same taps on the window, and then the foot-
steps passed to the shed.

Alother looked at me. We both got up and waited. The foot-
steps returned, and as the latch was lifted, Mother threw open the
door. No one was there.

It was a lovely night with the stars shining, and had anyone
been there, they would have been seen, 1'he gate w'as locked.

A couple of evenings later when I was fetching water through
the meadow, I t'loticed an old gentleman neatly dressed just iir
front of ‘me. I thought that Mr. and .Mrs. .M., our neighbours,
had probably got a visitor. I could see that the old gentleman
was making for the other meadow where the well was situated,
but instead of making for the stile, he cut across the corner of the
wood, and when I got over the stile into the meadow, there he
was about ten yards in front of it.

I got my buckets of water, and coming back, he was again in
front of me. He went through the corner of the wood again and
back into the«ther meadow, not crossing the stile. I could not
uaderstand (his *at all, as the hedge by the wood was so thick
that a dog^ could not have got through it.

I told Mr. M. that 1 h&d seen his visitor, but he said that he
had no visitor.

112

yUE.MOST (^HARHING GHOST

Aker this my mdther and I often few the old gentleman, some-
times sitting on the stile, sometimes in the meadow y the garden.
We got so used to Seeing him tltat he became part of the place.
Later mjf uncle came to live with us and he also saw him.

We spoke about the oid gentleman to the people in the village,
and they at once said that he had . been living in*the cottage that
we were in and had died there. Years before ther^ had been a
path down to the well, througji the tornej of the wood. That was
the^ath h%used. It was^ happy little cottage, and we were very
happy there wi^ the old gentleman who could not leave the place.

That, I think, is the most efiarming of ghost stories, not
least since iubears the unmistakable stamp of truth.

C*H A P T E R VII

Ghosts of the South Country

O F all the ghosts, gentle and ungentle, which walk the
thyme-scented downs or cry by night for their lost souls
in the darkling oakwoods, or stalk in grisly solemnity the
passages and stainvays of ancient mansions in the south
country, there k none, to my mind, to equal the haunting of
Brede PWce.

Brede is one of the older, smaller, and perfect ancient
manor^-houses of England. A house blent of all time and all
history, its stones and roofs coloured by uncounted summer
suns, its timbers bleached by winters that span four centuries
or more of English history.

Brede has for long been the home of the Frewen family,
and I cannot ^o better than give the story of its haunting in
th^ words written to me by its former owner, that great
gardener ^nd nun of elegant letters, Captain Oswald Frewen,
who recently sold the property to his nephew. Captain
Frewen writes on March 26th, 1953:

114

“he aje babies”

Bfede Place wa^ inhabited by Sfr Goddard Oxenbridge, “the
Giant” (his effigy lies on his tomb in the Oxenbridge channel of
Brede Churc^, abodt six feet foifr inches tall). He ate babies, so
that, as he was invulnerable tor steel, the children of East Sussex
and the children of Wert Sussex made him drunk, took him down
to Groaning Bridge in Stubb Lane, and there*%awed him in two
with a wooden saw. To many, Brede PlaPe is known as “The
Giant's House”.

U is olwioiJb that ccr^in Intelligent Ones, running the Free
Trade racket ii^the i8th century, and knowing that the Moral is to
the material as three to one, decided that die best defence and pro-
tection for their employees agamst the Preventive Men was to
people Brede Place with Ghosts rather than arm their fellows with
horse pistAs, and readiest (ft hand came the legtnds of Gilles de
Retz. (I have been told, but you know friend Gilles better than I.)

On the other hand there is a presumption (hat there was a holy
shrine at Ri Place site of old. It is just above the old highway
from Rye to Lewes, just above a little stream which hereabouts
ceases to be tidal and so becomes fordable at all times, and Sir
Thdmas “atte Ford” inherited it. He decided to build a nice
Hall-type mans’ jn, a little before 1350 (Edward III lunched here
with his Queen before embarking at Winchelsea to win the batde
of I’Espagnols sur Mer). It was the usual type of Hall house, on
the plan of a chamber for scullions, a hall open up to the roof,
with a bonfire on the floor in the centre, and adjoining that the
seigneur’s apartments.

But where Brede Place differs from others (which dc” 'equently
incorporate or attach a little chapel) is that at the soutii end. Sir
Thomas built a chapel one quarter longer than the house is
broad, with a priest’s apartment beyond it, completely segregated
from the house, seigneurs, scullions, and all.

Now my suggestion is that Sir Thomas built thus religiously
on an already holy site, and installed a holy priest for his chapel
and relics. He died and his daughter Joan carried the estate by
inheritance to the Oxenbridges, who remained, grands seigneurs,
in ownership for some 225 years, during whieft time one of them
built a south aisle on to Brede Chur'-h, as the ‘JPxen’’'ridge
Chantrey”, where, as I said above? Su Goddard and another
Oxenbridge !je buried.

"5

GHOSTS OF ■I;HE S^UTH COUNTjlY

My point in all this arcHheology and histdry, is to estabksh the
“super” sanctity of Brede Place Chapel with its resident priest.
Now one of the later Oxenbcidges, the Elizabethan, decided to
modernise his old-^hioned house in accordance with the spirit
of the age, and accordingly floored over the great hall (thereby
ruining it and Nearly wrecking the entire building) and having
done so, desired tlft modern (Elizabethan) type grand staircase to
reach the upper B&r^ Hi.- best,^or worst guess, was to take the
eastern third of the chapel and instal^ it there, thus giving -iccess
to the upper priest's room, hitherto reached j}y a ladder in a
squire ceil-like excrek:ence, as well as to the rest of the house and
in particular to his grand bedr6om.

So that he evicted the priest and secularised the^olier end of
the chapel, ai.d built his staircase over the shrine of the relics.
The (presumably last and evicted) priest clearly damned him by
bell, book, and C2.ndle, and I think has remained “earth bound”
ever since, breathing hatred on any who tread those unholy stairs
between lo p.m. and dawn. He is so much more powerful than
one man, that verj' few people will pass up or down the stairs
between these times, but he is not powerful enough to impose
himself on two. I have never seen or heard him, nor known any-
one who has, but his Presence is the strongest thing I have ever
felt.

In a “Dell” or “Ghyll” in the top of the hill behind the house,
stood, in 1910, at its head, a very' old wreck of an ash, its
remaining trui>!. some seven or eight feet high and hollow for
srane se\^en or eight feet of diameter, out of nine or ten. To clear
the site for rhododendrons or azaleas, I personally got rid of it by
burning all my brushwood clearances in it for a fortnight or so on
end, \>ut the whole dell, and particularly that end of it, were so
“fey” that I couldn’t work in the place after sunset. Years later
I found it so inconvenient to have to cease work at sunset and not
at dark, that I tpok advice, was told the Presences were non-
human — Elemental^and that if I told them to go away in a
commanding ^ice, they would go.

'This 1 tried and fearfully one evening, stiode through the dell,
and rather to my surprise, survived! Next morning, the acid test,
I strode through again, n<ft so fearfully. I felt Presences, but only
waist high.

116

'‘l.. . . TURNED AND RAN”

The third night,* I felt nothing, find ever after could wo^ till
dark prevented my doing so, although at the very head of the dell,
by the site of the oW ash, I was «iever completely comfortable, or
rather, I •was sometimes i/ncomfortable.

Going back to the house it suddenly occurred to me that I
seemed to be one of those privileged beings \%ho can lay ghosts
and, successful in the garden, I would lay dso the gentleman on
the stairs.

I«waitecktilbio p.m. (if is always ii p.m. during Summer Fool
Time) felt his^ntry into the drawing-room, arose, went to the
foot of the stairs, and using precisely the same procedure,
advanced resolutely up the first tread, confident in myself and
told him to^^pass on, pass on, I can^t help you”.

I felt nflich Power befor^ me, advanced less esolutely up the
second tread, fattered in my ‘‘mantram” — turned and ran. He
remained.

Years I -iter I sold to my sister, and she has described in her
book, My Crowded Sanctuary, all sorts of communications, all
of which (unlike mine) could be the result of honest, unrealised
self-deception, with the one exception of a young lady who came
to her, called Iicrself '‘Martha”, cried, I seem to remember,
because she had been so wicked as to steal in the house, so that ^^e
seigneur "hanged her on that big ash at the head of the ‘GhylP
above the house”.

I don’t think my sister knew of the existence of the great hollow
trunk which I had burned away. She says she allowed Martha^to
depart altogether, and in peace. I do iLli^k she mus^ lave eased
her conscience, but there are still times when I do fet her about
in that neighbourhood, and so do others.

My sister made friends with "Father John” but not* to the
extent of getting him to verify my theory’, or supply details. We
always regarded the Stairs Presence as that of the last priest, and
auto-suggestion can terribly easily enter into the story of "Father
John” as such, but the Presence is still there, and I think,
malevolent to all except my late mother, who wcgild go up in the
old paraffin lamp and candle days, at 3 a.m., after falling asleep
over her book in the drawing-room, and when asked^"bnr what
about the ghost?” would just say, "Ohi . don’t mind them, they
arc all friend!^ to me.”

O.A.W. — 9

1 17

GHOSTS OF THE SOUTH COUNTRY

iJhe never denied themf and she had rescued the old house
from dereUction and treated the remains of the chapel with
reverence.

. Captain Frewen concludes this highly interesting account,
which he modestly describes as “so tardy and truncated a
yam” with*the wofds, “My nephew has bought Brede Place,
but seems to have seen 6r felt no ghosts to date, but he
and his bride live principally in'- the north (hnhaiinted)
part.”

Not so far from Brede Place as the witch flies is the great
forest of St. Leonards, which still covers much of Sussex in
the neighbourhood of Horsham, and was for centuries the
great haunt of smugglers. And wherever you find smugglers,
you find ghosts and hauntings, for nothing suited the purpose
of the free traders better than an apparition which kept
people indoors at night. The late Miss Dorothea Hurst, in
her History of Horsham, the second edition of which
was published in 1889, says of the St. Leonards smugglers
that:

t

Mr. Aldridge, of New Lodge (now called Sl Leonards), great-
grandfather of the present owner, well remembered that when he
wa& a boy it was no unconunon occurrence for thirty or forty
fufly-armed men to ride up the avenue to the house, and tha't
supper used to be spread for them in the servants’ hall as a sort
of blackmail which the inhabitants of Icmely, unprotected houses
werc^ obliged to pay on these occasions. It was the custom of
these smugglers also to take the horses from the stables, use them,
groom them and put them back, and so pass on from station to
station up the country towards London by unfrequented roads.
It is not to be wondered at that a countr}' so wild and lawless,
should abound in legends and traditionary tales of a superstitious
character.

One these legends xoncems the remarkable avenue of
firs in the forest called “Mike Mills' Race”. The fir trees

118

The Dragon of St. Leonards Forest

MIKE mills’ race

were fif immense ^ize, but the greater part of them |were
blown down many years ago, but the site of the avenue,
originally a mile arfd a quartei*long, and containing 15,000
well-groWn trees, is still pointed out.

According to the legdnd, Mike Mills was a noted smuggler,
who had defied the Devil on many c^caiiOns. Old Nick
more than once tried to catch him ^ on hk midnight
journeys through the forert wii.n strings of ponies laden
with "tubs bf Crandy and bales of silk. But Mike was too
smart for him.

Finally, one moonlit night, the Devil, lying in wait at
the end of the avenue, surprised Mike with a band of
smugglers, •lie immediately challenged him -^nd summoned
Mike to yield, dtclaring that he had sold himself body and
soul.

Mike, nothing daunted, set down his tubs, looked the Devil
up and down with easy insolence, and noting the old gentle-
man’s age and nobbly knees, immediately challenged him to
a race down the avenue.

“If you can catch me, Nick, before I get to the end of the
avenue, you shall have me at once; if not, you shall h^e
nothing more to do with me.” “Agreed,” says Nick. And,
says the local legend: Away ran Mike, aw'ay ran Nick. Nick
^eing of too hot a temperament, was soon knocked ujJ, and
Mike won the race by a quarter of a mile; trom ^hich cir-
cumstance the place was named and Mike Mills rmdered
immortal.

A far more potent legend, however, is that of ihe Dragon
of St. Leonards. This is set out in an ancient document
printed in 1614 in the following words:

The Legend of the Dragon of St. Leonards Forest —

True and Wonderful.

A discourse relating a strange and Monstrous Serpen or

Dragon, lately discovered and yet living . the great annoyance

and divers slaughters both of men and catde in Sussex, two miles

121

GHOSTS OF THE- SOUTH CO.UNTlfY

fro|a Horsham, in a wood lulled St. Leonards Forest, an^ thirty
miles from London this present month of ^gust, 1614.

Printed Ok London by fohn Trundle, 1614.

To the Reader,

The just rewtp'dt^of him that is accustomed to lie, is not to be
believed when he %peaketh the truth; so just an occasion may
sometimes bee im^os^ upcn the pamphleting; and therefore if
we receive the same rewarde we ^annot much •belam# our
accusers — ^which often fals out either by our forward credulity
to bht seeming true reports, or by false copies transcribed from
other languages which (though we beget not) we foster, and our
shame is little the less. But passing by what's pa^ let not our
present truth ablush for any fals^ood's sake. ThS countrie is
near us, Sussex; the time present, August; th# subject a serpent,
strange yet now*a neighbour to us; and it were more than
imprudent to forge a lie, so near home that every man
might turn on our throats, believe it, or reade it not, or reade
it (doubting) for I believe, ere thou hast read this little all,
thou will not doubt of one, but believe there are many serpents
in England.

Farewell,
by A.R.

he that would send better news if he had it.

In Sussex thgre is a pretty market towne called Horsam, neaj;
which is*a forrest called St. Leonards Forrest, and there in a vast
and unfrequented place, heathie, vaultie, full of unwholsome
shades and overgrown hollowes where this serpent is thought to
be bred, certaine and too true is it that there it yet lives, within
3 or 4 miles compass are its usual haunts, oftentimes at a place
called Fay-gate, and it hath been seene within half a mile of
Horsam, a wonder no doubt, most terrible and noisome to the
inhabitants there^outs.

There is always iti his tracke or path left a glutinous and slimie
matter (as by af small similitude we may perceive in a snaile),
which is^very coirupt and offensive to the scent, insomuch that
they perceive the air to be putrified with all which must needs be
very dangerous; for though the corruption of it cannot strike the

122

THE SERPENT

outward parts of ‘a man, unless Ideated into the blood, ijet by
receiving it into atw of our breathing organs (the nose or mouth)
it is by authoritie\)f all authoas, writing in that kinde, mortall
and deadlief as one thus saith: “Nosia Serpentane est admits
sanguine Pestis” (Lucan).

The Serpent or Dragon, as some call i^isyeputed to be nine
fcete or rather more in length, and shape/ almost in the form of
the axle-tree of a cart, a quantitie qf thicknass in the middest, and
somewhat smaller at botjl enl^s. The former part which he shoots
forth as a necke is supposed to be about an ell long, with a white
ring as it were of scales about it. The scales along his backe
seeme to be blackish and so ihuch as is discovered under his
bellie, app^areth to be red; for I speak of no nearer description
than a re&sonable ocular c^tance; for coming (oo neare it, hath
already been tod dearlie pay’d for, as you shall heare hereafter.

It is likewise discovered to have large feets, but the eye may be
there deceived, for some suppose that serpents have no feete but
glide along upon certain ribbes and scales, which both defend
them, from the upper part of the throat, unto the lower part of
their bellie, and also cause them to move much the faster, for so
this doth and rids away, as we call it, as fast as a man can run.
He is of countenance very proud, and at the sight or heareing of
man or cattell, will raise his necke upright, and seem to listen
and loke about with great arrogance. There are likewise on either
side of him discovered two great bunches, so big as a large fuote
ball, and as some think, will growe into wing^, but God 1 hpp^
will so defend the poor people of the neighbourhood, Uuit he shall
be destroyed before he growe so fledge. He w’ill case venome
about 4 roddes from him, so by woefull experience it was proved
on the bodies of a man and woman coming that wa\, who after-
wards were found dead, being poysoned and very much swelled,
but not preyed upon; likewise a man going to chase it and as he
imagined to destroy it with great mastiff dogs were both killed
and he himself glad to return with haste to preserve his own Kfe.
Yet this is to be noted that the dogs wer< not^jreyed upon, but
slaine and left whole — for his food is thought to be for the jnost
part in a conie warren which he most frequents, and it is found
to be much scanted and impaired in the Increase *it Itad wont to
afford. These persons whose names are heare under-printed have

123

GHOSTS OF THE SOUTH COJLJNTHY

se^ this serpent, besides divers others, as the carrier of Hprsam,
who lieth at the White Horse in Southwark •and who can certifie
the truth of^all that hath hereii^been relatedf

John Steele,

Christopher Holder,
andfwVlow woman dwelling at Fay-Gate.

A charming cropf of^Sussex witches and wizards comes to
me from Mr. H. A. Lee, of Bronfaj^ Beacon Road, Seaford,
Sussex, who writes:

My father and mother often told me these tales. They were
believers in witches and wizards.

My father stid he worked on a f^rm at Clymping, Sussex. He
said the farmer was a very stern mistrustful man, so he used to
get on the top of % hayrick, and spy on his workmen most days.
One day he was spotted by the men. Amongst them was a wizard,
so he said to his mates: ‘‘I will soon cure him of this.”

He bewitched this farmer, so that he could not get down from
the rick. He kept him there a couple of days and then released
the spell. When he came down the wizard said to him: “Perhaps
you won’t want to spy on us again.” And he never did.

On another occasion my father said he was with another man
when they had a loaded waggon drawn by a team of horses. All
ol a^sudden the waggon stopped. The horses pulled and pulled,
but the waggont would not pull. The man used his long whip,*
slashing tit the horses. In so doing, his whip slashed the W'heel,
and the waggon moved easily enough, for, from this wheel ran
a hare. Where it ran was a long mark of blood. This was a w itch
who had turned herself into a hare and bewitched the waggon
wheel so that it would not move.

On another occasion my father told me of a postman who at
certain times used^ to meet a ghost on a dark road. He was very
frightened until one day someone told him that when he met the
ghost he was t« say*to it: “Spirit, spirit, why troublest thou me.”
H# did this the ^ext time, and the ghost answered him,» and told
him to dg sometiiing about a certain grave, and then his spirit
could rest. The postman <lid this, and the ghost was never seen
again.

124

‘/grandmother- WAS A WITCH”

I^r several yeai%, my mother, w^cn I was a schoolboy, was ill
every Christmas, sometimes at death’s door. As I got older
these illnesses cea^d, and my another said to me Uiat she knew
my grandmother (my father’s mother) was a witch, and it was
she who made my mother ill every Christmas, because she had
never agreed to my mother marrying my yatl^^. It was strafige
that the illnesses ceased as soon as my gcanJmother died.

My father was in Australia before he ^got maiVied, and my
mother always said thatjhis mother was able to say just what her
boy would do even though he was so far away, and my mother
said it was true. When my grandmother died, the pillow flew
from under her head right across the room as soon as the breath
left her boj)y.

125

CHAPTER VIII

Some East Anglian
Hauntings

E ast ANGLIA, my native land of fens and the high
brecks, of old manorial farms and shimmering coastal
mud-flats has a sturdy population of robust ghosts. They
range from Anne Boleyn, sitting headless in her coach drawn
by a team of headless horses which careers madly under the
mqon over twentj^ or it may be forty, county bridges in a
night, to Black Shugk, the ghastly Hell-hound who pads the
Norfolk cliff-top* path and haunts the coastal road from
Peldbn to ToUesItunt D’Arcy on the flat seaward fringe of
iBssex.

Essex is full of witches and wizards. Within the memory

126

THE SPRINGFIELD PLACE GHOST

of living men slmt»t emy mar^ village on the coett and
every hamlet in th\ ancient countty of the Roothings md its
^tch or ‘SviM maH^ Perhapsnhe most famous* of all Essex
i^ards Cunning Murell who dwelt within the shadow
of the ruins of Ha(Ue%h Castle, where ^e Thames me^
the marshes and the flat half-land of sea add land glimmers
under the moon. There is a book about /um.

Now I could fill a book, iwice'ihe Isngth of this one, with
tales*of ghosts and haurAings, of horrid laughter in the night,
and of footstejls that tread menacingly in half the parishes
between Thames and Wash, but let me start with the ghost
of Springfield Place.

Sprin^eld is near Chelmsford. It ga\^ its name to
Springfield, M^sachusetts, and the Springfield rifle. The
Place was till recently the home of the Ridleys, Essex
brewers. Mr '^bomas B. Ridley, of Orchard Place, Polegate,
Sussex, a member of the family, has urged me to tell the
story. So here it is in the unimpeachable w’ords of that
excellent county newspaper, the Essex Weekly News with,
to follow, a long confirmatory letter from Miss Petre, of
Ingatestone, a member of the family of Lord Petre* of
Ingatestone Hall.

The Essex Weekly News says, in its issue of January 1946:

•

A story was going the rounds yesterday that tl><. -'host of
Springfield Place had reappeared.

Springfield Place, a centuries-old house, standing close to the
east end of the Parish Church, is the property of th^ Ridley
family, but has been requisitioned by the Ministry of Supply as
a hostel for girls employed by the Hoffman Manufacturing Co.
Most of the girls are from Southern Ireland.

Recently, so the story goes, two of the girls sleeping on the top
floor, suddenly awoke in fright. They complained that something
uncanny had touched vheir faces. There were also reports of
other strange happenings, such as of things falling.

Inquiries brought to light the fact . at in yeats gone by,
Springfield Place had the reputation of being haunted by the

127

SOME EAST ANGLIAN HAUNJINGS

figure of a man, and as the ghost of those days was said to ^grander
in mat part of the house from which the la^t disturbances were
supposed t^ have occurred, th«t section ofWie building has been
put under lock and key.

That is the stow. So far as can b« ascertained, no one has
actually seen thf gMt, though members of the ^dley family
were told, as childif|,<tltot the place was supposed to have one.

If there^ a ghost, Jlie hgs been very quiet since the key was
tun^ upon him. The girls no lo^ef.woiTy, buissle^ in peace.

In h later issue, liie Essex Weekly News printed the
following letter:

Sir, — I was a'erj- interested to rd^d in your issue, T)f the ghost
in Springfield Place.

In 1864 my grAidparents, the Hon. Heniy' W. Petre and his
wife, Eleanor, went to live at Springfield Place, which they
occupied for 21 years. During this period the ghost was actually
seen on one occasion. I cannot do better than quote from a book
written by their eldest daughter, Mrs. Philip Wellesley-Colley
(formerly Lucy Petre), in which she says:

“The old house is called ‘Springfield Lawn’, and this on
account of the big expanse of mossy lawn in front of the house.
There is i magnificent old oak staircase with carved banisters
which is quite a feature in the interior of the house; under this
there is a spaciaus cupb9ard having a secret underground little*
chamber, ‘which may have been a priest’s hiding-hole. The large
bedroom called the Blue Room, or Ghost Room, about which
there seemed a deep mystery, is panelled in oak and painted light
blue. ‘High up on one of the walls there are hinges of cupboards,
which always had a mysterious significance for us, but they were
never opened in our time. There were some other uncanny things
in this old house, guch as trap doors, dark passages and bricked-
up windows.

“In August (tSbSj grandmother Walmesley died such a saintly
death at Ramsgate. Mother was away ,a long time nursing her;
she had ^baby Nellie (afterwards Lady Young), who was very
ill, with her, so had a double anxiety. Nell was still ill and
feverish with her teeth. One night she was more restless than

128

“A.HIDEOL'S little man”

usual, and Mothcr«took her into tl|e Blue Room to prevent her
from disturbing Fatter.

“Baby Nell at length was mat^; quite content with some hard
•rusks to gnavf to help her teeth to come through, and then Mother
began to doze; but a chuckle from the chQd arotised her; baby
was calling out, Tunny man, funny manjr |I^tantly Mother
located up to see what was the matter and Jadield a hideous l ittle
man standing with folded arms hialback to*the fire. A
moipentaiy act of terror ttafle Mother {over her head with the
bed-clothes; then in theltext instant* she sprang out of bed, but
the elf had vanished. Baby kept up her ‘funny man’ and seemed
much amused.

“Mother ^searched every cupboard and cranny, but no trace
could she *hnd of the dwai^; she did not like jo go and wake
Father, so she sftid a prayer and got back quietly into bed and
soon fell fast asleep.

“The next morning we had a full account of the whole affair
and were not in the least surpri.sed, as it had happened in the
Blue Room, the haunt of ghosts. We pestered Father to have all
those mysterious cu,jboards opened, whose hinges could be seen
high up in the wall >.e laughed at us and aske^' how even an ugly
dwarf could jump so high and disappear in an instant through
tightly fastened panels. It was all verj’ fine laughing, we children
said, but it was most certain that the ogre had his home there; and
in future we had to go on living in the same house with a nasty
little dwarf, just because he could jump high, ^ow the vounger
children in their fright would scuttle past d...t Blue Roc door,
even in the daytime!”

1 only hope the ghost will leave the present occupants in peace.

Yours faithfully,

Mary Petre.

Tor Bryan, Ingatestonc, Essex.

•

A highly interesting account concerning what may well be
one of the last authentic Essex witches, is given me by Mrs.
N. S. IVfungo Park, of Stomps, Great Canfield, Dunrrfbw.
She says that the Reverend IMr. Vincci. , who waS Vicar of
High Easter, told her that an old naan of the village, referring

129

SOME EAST ANG^IAN HAUI^TINGS

to a certain woman in tjie parish who* was creditef} with
being a witch, told the following story, '^*hich I give in Mrs.
Mungo Park’s own words;

It appeared tHbt a girl in the village had something very
wrong with oti^ of her legs, and a “wise woman” whom she had
consulted told her*tkat she had been “overlooked” by the witch —
but she could be curad. Iftr mother, was to light the copper, get
the water nearly boiling and seat ^e girl on ‘the* edge the
copper with her bad leg in the hot water, and to keep it in as long
as she could bear it ’Afterwards she was to be put to bed. This
was done and next morning the leg was healed.

“Now,” said the wise woman; “go you to the Wjfch’s cottage,
and you will See what you will seei” What tl)(£y did see was that
the witch’s leg was scalded and burnt from the knee to the ankle.

Another of thel)ld man’s anecdotes was of a child who was sent
on a message to a cottage. On her return she said to her mother,
“That’s a strange place! I saw the cat and the meece [mice]
eating from the same dish.”

“Never you go there again,” said her mother. “Where the cat
and the meece eat from the same dish the woman is always a
Vitch.”

Mrs. Mungo Park adds, dryly, “I have three cats and I
frequently tell ^em this story, hoping that it will penetrate!’.’
She tells me that the lasV witch to be ducked in England, was
ducked in the Doctor’s Pond at Dunmow, in 1882.

An amusing but far from edifying witch story is sent me
by my good old friend Mr. T. W. Morley, of Holywell Row,
on the Suffolk edge of the fens. Mr. Morley is a true East
Anglian villager, and after a lifetime spent as a builder on
fums and amid the Brecks and the wild fen, he is a fount
of rural lore and loqal superstitions.

Writing to mejie says:

Betwdln.1906 and 191^ I was working at Herringswell Manor,
near Newmarket. The Head Keeper, Mr Edgar Sparkes, an old

130

“lousy from read to foot”

friend of mine 8nd*a man not giverfto telling frivolous tales, told
me in all seriousi^ that as a lad he was riding to Bufy St
Edmunds in their i\ny trap, wh^ they passed a qu^r looking old
lady who saW: “Give us a lift, Guv'nor.” His father toc4c one
look at her and refused- She replied; “Vcjp will remember me
before you get home.” And he did. In his awn words he was
“lousy from head to foot and every bit pi nothing had to be
burnt!”

Mf. MoYley sheds n%w light op the old legend of the
ghostly maiden*who was said to haunj-the now-demojished
old Manor House at Mildenhall in Suffolk, for long the seat
of the Bunburys.

I was working in about fqoi on the reconstruction of a sitting
room [he writes] when one of the men, excavating under the floor
came across some bones. They were carefully collected and after
being examincJ by an expert, were said to be those of a young
female, and taken away and interred elsewhere. An old servant in
the house told me quietly: “This is the room where Colonel North
murdered his daughter and buried her under the floor.”

About thirty years afterwards, I was working on Ampton
Church, when I lifted a section of the floor and under it found a
small crypt containing in lead caskets the bodies of a Colonel
North and of a young woman. I could not help wondering if the
unfortunate girl was really in her casket, or whether it was empjtj'.

Legends of imps, the familiars of witches, are tommon
enough in various parts of East Anglia, particularly in Essex,
but Mr. Morley tells me of a new and hitherto unrecorded
nest of imps. Years ago, he met an old man w ith white hair
and a long white beard who said to him; “You remind me of
a lad I used to know in Swaffham Prior ip Cambridgeshire.
There was an old woman there that we were both afraid of.
She used to ask us to go to the shop for hpr'and we daren’t
refuse. One day she gave us both a piece of cake, and lea^ng
us sitting in her cottage parlour, went out to get aome pota-
toes, saying as she left the room: ‘Don’t you dare touch

SOME EAST ANGLIAN HAUNTINGS

that box.’ The moment slje was gone the^other boy lifted the
lid aKd we got a glimpse of a horrible, cowling, rolling mass
of awful-lofiking creatures r/ith queer Aeads, squeaking as
they rolled over one another. We had only ‘time to get' a
glimpse of them bfefore the old I'ady’was back into the room
like a shot and4dt out a fearful yell. We lit out of that cottage
as fast as w<e could gb‘! W’e were told afterwards that she was
a witch and that thesawertfher imp? ’

, «

Not long after [sg^s Mr. Morley] I had an assistant from
Swaffham Prior, who told me that one of the villagers reported
seeing something in white sitting in a ploughed Held at night. He
rushed into the pub and told the^locals. They lad^ghed at him.
So, just beforfi closing time, he left the pub, ^j'rapped himself in
a sheet and sat at the end of the ploughed Held just as the chaps
were turning out of the pub. As they approached him he turned
his head and saw something in white sitting in the ploughed field
just behind him! He was out of that Held like a shot and legged it
for home as fast as he could go.

Mr. Morley records that when he was a boy, an old woman
caHed Mrs. Eley in his native village, reputed to be a witch,
lived in a cottage with her daughter Maria, and a black and
whke cat. The daughter was one-armed, as the witch was
sajd to have chqoped'the other arm off when the girl became
engaged to a young man'bf whom she did not approve.

Mr. Morley says that he and other boys were so terrified of
the cat which had a sinister habit of turning up in the most
unexpected places, that they ambushed it one day, pelted it
with stones, but failed to hit it. When they returned to the
village they found the old witch in a rage, and, says Mr.
h^prley: “She cursed us and threatened that if we ever
touched her cat slje would turn us all into animals and
nobody would ‘ever know us. She was gaunt and bent and
walked with a cratch, and her face was thin and yellow and
so evil thaf she frightened the life out of us.”

This indefatigable story-teller of the Fenland, who has

132

‘‘•FEAR MY FiOLLOWER’'

gone to immense pains to provide me with village beliefg and
legends for this bo(K says, in a further letter, written in 1953 :

When 1 was a boy I had to come from Qeck Row to Holywell
Row weekly to collect the butter— lod. to i^-d. a pound then—
and I had to pass Whitings Farm which was ^id to be haunted.
It stood empty for several years, and I think* there n^jist be some-
thing sinister about it, as twp men have^ciiftmitted suicide there
in rfty time. On my way ^ome I had to pass Aspal Hall and Beck
Lodge and the Ijorsekeeper told me when Re has been going home
late on diflFercnt occasions he has seen a lady in a long,* black
cloak pass along the road and riglit through a bricked-up gateway
in the wal^> I did not loiter here at night, and heaved a sigh of
relief when I pasged that do^r!

Another old friend of mine, a man I greatly respected, told me
he and some friends were passing Aspal FJhn one night when
something hnee passed them, shaking the ground as it went, and
saying: “Don't fear me — fear my follower." Immediately some-
thing passed them like a terrific gust of wind, but nothing was
seen. The farm where his parents lived, also had a bad reputation.
When they got to bed at night, sometimes all the bells would start
ringing, for no apparent reason. As this happened too often, Ae
bells were taken out. At other times they would hear the crockerj'
being smashed, but nothing was found even broken.

Another very old friend with whom I fished for many •years,
lived in West Row. He told me there M'as a harf in a certain field
that none of their dogs could catch. As it always werft he same
way they decided to catch it by some other means so they put their
dogs in the field and, of course, the hare made off the same way
as usual, but a Mr. Boyce was waiting at the other end of the field
with his gun. He promptly shot the hare, which uttered a piercing,
unearthly scream. At the same time an old lady named Mrs.
Jerrington was burned to death in her chair. §he was said to have
been the hare.

Here is one told me by my grandmother. ^ A smallholder in
Lakenheath could not get any butter from his milk. After coiltin-
uous churning, and no results, he came to the conclusic^ the cows
were bewitched, and blamed an old lady living nearby. Someone
stole some of^the old lady's hair. This was put on the fire and

G.A.W. — 10 T *7 'I

cSOME EAST ANGLIAN HAUNTINGS

bupt. At the same time sbme of the milk Was brought to a boil.
All the doqrs and windows were securely f^tened and everyone
had orders to be perfectly qufet. As the nnlk boiled and the hair
burned, up came the old woman on her broom, or whatever cori-
.veyance she used,Shouting, “Let* me In. Let me in.” Someone
said “Listen” «Ad the spell was broken, otherwise her leg would
have bursVand the milk become normal again.

My father told file ^notlftr stoijr, t{iis was of an old man living
in Lakenheath who was very miserly rnd very mSan.* One day he
was found at the botlom of the staircase with his neck broken. It
was thought he had fallen downstairs, but it was found out after-
wards that a poor old lady had called there begging, but he had
refused to help her, and slammed ^e door in her fate. When the
door was open one day, a cat crept> in, which„the old man could
not get rid of. When he went to bed, it was waiting upstairs in the
form of a witch, and pushed him downstairs, backwards.

An old friend of mine, still living in Mildenhall, rented a house
on Whitehouse Drove on the Mildenhall-Littleport road, near
the Little Ouse river. ^

The former tenant told him, “You won’t be there long”, and
when my friend asked him why, he said, “You will soon find out.”
''And,” said my friend, “I did. There were such unearthly noises
at night, we were unable to sleep.” He told his wife it was the
horses in the meadow, but said he knew different. Sometimes it
sounded like someone rending up the floors, and it got so bad his
•wife would no£ be left there alone, so in the end they left it afe
soon as they could. I don’t think anyone lived there afterwards,
and I believe the house was eventually pulled down. The fenman,
being a rather reserved sort of person, talks very little about these
thin^ for fear of being laughed at.

Another remarkable story from the fens was sent to me by
Mr. William Mafkall, of Longstone Crescent, Frecheville,
Sheffield, who writes:

My mpther and her parents lived in the house next to Southery
old Churchyard. A friend of the family set out one misty morn-
ing for Littleport, with horse and trap. The horse was blind, and

134

OLD NICK AND THE ARK

instead of taking tHe turning to the hridge it turned into the^ river,
and horse and occ^ants of the trap were drowned, mother, a
girl at the time, woke in the motning of that same day to see the
figure of the old lady leaning over the foqt of her bed; and her
father, also in the same^morhing, going to v!ork saw the figure of
the old lady hurrying along the path in front/of him. He called
without receiving an answer. ...

That is all. I hope your reception of i^^ife^perfectly true story —
whtch may Bfe verified hy a report of the accident in the local
paper of the cjjiy, somewhere about 187^ — will be like my own,
which is to welcome something not legehd, not invention,* but of
truly scientific interest, however backing in meaning or moral.

Mr. Maurices Mottram, of Three Owlk, Holt Road,
Cromer, a cousin of my old friend Mr. I^. H. Mottram, the
distinguished novelist, has a delicious Norfolk legend to the
effect that tii.rc was a local belief that the Ark came to rest
on Mulbarton Common.

An old inhabitant repeated this tb a stranger who expressed
some doubt as to the correctness of this. The old inhabitant,
who probably knew little of the world beyond what he could
see, and was correspondingly parochial in his outlook replied
with some heat: “That must be true. Where else could it ha’
grounded? Aren’t this the highest bit o’ ground fo» miles
‘round?’’

The story goes on:

When ole Nick see tha Ark he got inter a poont (ppnt) an’
curled his tail up under the thwart and come rowing around just
as Noah had opened the winder to let the dove in. And Nick sings
out: “Mornin’ Cap’n Noah. Nice mornin’ arter the rain.” But
ole Noah he see Nick’s tail a-curled up under the thwart an’* he
sings out: “You go to Hell” and bangs the winder down!

Another Norfolk superstition sent me by Co|pnel S. E
Glendenning, d.s.o., f.s.a., of Rosary Koad, Thorpe Hamlet,
Norwich, is ^o the effect that the devil gets into blackberries

13s

tSOME EAST ANGtLI^N HAUNTINGS

on I^ovember ist and, ^ys Colonel Cljendenning:' “My
mother, bom over loo years^ago, got the yarn either in the
Ormesby or the Ranworth district. She vfas a highly educated
lady and did not (think the Devil A^as concerned, but was
obviously worried when I told her I had found some ripe
blackberries in*the«fiESt week in November. ‘You shouldn’t
have eaten tliem. Tljere is something wrong with them after
November ist.’ I agree they are*notvery nice«as late asithis,
but I hardly think this accounts for the superstition.”

Ghdstly coaches arfi familiar apparitions in most counties,
but although I have known that charming Norfolk village of
Weybourne and the bleak ench^ted marshes of Salthouse
for many years', I confess that the ctorj'^ seni*-me by Mrs. Iris
Brayne, a holder of the Kaiser I Hind Medal, of The Glebe,
Ashill near Thetford, is new to me. Mrs Brayne writes:

When I was a little girl (and I am now an old woman) my great-
uncle owned a large portion of Weybourne and cultivated the
Home Farm himself. One evening when I was staying there the
team-man came in trembling with fright and told how, as he was
bringing his horses home, a coach and four had come galloping
down the street and .the driver was without a head, and they had
all disappeared through the churchyard wall. I went with him
and saw his teyified horses. My great-uncle, William Bolding,
then told^me that this ghSst had been seen several times before.

He also told me about a blue sow who used to cross the road
between Kelling and Salthouse and no hedge would grow there,
but tl^at one amused him, as he thought it was like some holes in
his hedges where the smugglers crossed his land. He said that
every now and then a keg of brandy or some silk would be left in
his porch because he did not report them or worry them! I still
have a silk sash tlfet he found on his doorstep long ago and gave
to me when I \%^s a little girl.

On that^leak coast to the south there stands, with its face
to the san(ihins and its back to the reedy wastes and gleaming
waters of Hickling Broad and the Brograve Level, the old

136

OLD SIR .BARNEY

Hall of Waxham. A bleakly bekutiful little manor-house
set behind an embattled wall, with a great gaun^ church and
almighty flintfbuilt bam to keef it company. Half the ancient
lands of Waxham lie under the sea, and t^e Hall itself is said
to be haunted by the uhshriven spirits of the Brograves who
died violently. First, Sir Ralph who died,irfthe Crusades on
a Saracen’s spear, then Sir Edmund whc^fell in*the Barons’
War%. Sir Jolvi was killed by an arroif at Agincourt and Sir
Francis in the Wars of the Roses,* lighting for the Lancas-
trians. Sir Thomas was slain at Marston Moor aad Sir
Charles fell at Ramillies under Marlborough.

Sir Barney died a bachelor, although he dotted the
countryside witl^his gortr^ut. On New Year’s Eve he gave a
banquet to the shades of his departed ancestors, when covers,
and nothing else, were laid for the six gholtly visitants. The
seventh was more substantially supplied. Glasses were filled
for each guest and their toasts solemnly drunk. At midnight
the wraiths vanished and later Sir jJarney awoke, tired, cold,
and with a hangover.

His fights and bets were fantastic. When a sweep over-
charged him for cleaning the Hall chimneys, he fought the
man but got the worst of it because he knocked so much soot
out of the sweep’s clothes that it nearly choked him. It took
a week’s hard drinking to remove th^ taste ofjt.

The late Walter Rye had an enchanting tale 4 }^ a local
marshman’s verdict on Sir Barney in these words:

*Owd Sir Barney Brograve he wur a werry bad old mait and he
sold his soul to the Devil and guv him a parchment bond. When
he died he went and called on the Devil and say to him “Here 1
be” and the Devil he say; “Sir Barney, 1 aillus sed you wag a
perfect gentleman” — and Sir Barney he say; “Well, you might
ask me to set down” but the Devil he say; V been looking trew
your aCcount and it fare to me if I hev you in here ’twon’rt>e a
sennight afore yew’ll be top-d(^ and I shall hev to play second

‘ Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries, January 27ih, 1906.

137'

,SOME EAST ANGILIAN HAUNTINGS

/tddle, so there’s your wriAng bock, Mid tAm be offl*’ gip
B»fney, he^ssy; "Where am I to go tew?” the owd Devil he
forgot hisself and got angry add he any; ” 0 o to belli" Sir Bamcv
he had no idea of vjrandering all about nowhere, so he*tuk him at
his word and he sat down and stayedf And they du say there’s
tew Devils thctevnow.

Binham, five mifef. ^south-east/sf Wells-ncxt-the-Sea, pos-
sesses the beautiful remains of a Benedictine^ Priory, dbout
which they tell the grim fegend of a fiddler and his dog, lost
in an underground tunnel. Qddly enough, when the County
Council workmen were excavating at a place called Fiddler’s
Hill, about two miles away in Apail 1935, they discovered the
skeletons of a 'man and a dog, iX^’hich I Understand , were
verified by Dr. Hioks of Wells-next-the-Sea.

The original story was beautifully told in dialect in The
East Anglian Hand-book in 1892, and that version I give
here. It will be noted, however, that according to the dialect
story-teller, the dog returned above ground, but his master
was never seen again. This does not agree w'ith the account
of the finding of the bones in 1935. However, here is the tale
as it was told in the true Norfolk tongue in 1892.

**‘So you want tb go to Binham, eh, sir? Ah, them there old
abbeys are funr.y places, and there’s funny talcs told about ’em!
Some on* ’em true, tu, as 1 know well, sir. I s’posc you ha’ bin to
Walsin’ham?”

I nodded, and the old man went on: “Walsin’ham was the finest
placeof the two. I’m told, though Binham had a name er its own.
Do you know, sir, there’s a subt’tanim passage atween them two
right underground. You can see it as you goo along the road, run-
nin’ across the mejlders like a grate green bank and 1 ha’ sin ’em
a-borin’ down to tiy an* find out mor about it — specially where it
cross the road dSn^ where you can hear the holler sound on’t as you
dst/€ over it old monks used to be up to curis -[curious]

kind o* ggmes, and I ’spect that when they got kinder tired o’ their
own company they used to goo tru this underground passage to
see the fdks at the other end. Went a-wisitin’ yer know, sir.

138

Sir Barney Brograve and the Devil

JIMMY, TH? FIDDLER

”T»hare are folks who say that tikice was ther time that every
night a grate tall feller, like an old monk, and dressed in Iblack,
used to walk along ^n top o’ thtf bank right from A^alsin’ham to
Binham,*shalcin’ his ugly owd hid and ’pejijin’ just as if he was
a-Iookin’ fer suffin^ he could never find. I ha’ never sin him^ but
my grandsir hev many a time, though none e^i clapped eyes on
him sin the fiddler went down thare and never cum b^jick.

“Yer see, sir, once was^tha time ti.at the bank, close to

thefabbej^, kiflder caved 'n, and a lot on ’em went to see it and to
peep into the Jark old passage. They d*en’t goo in, or at least,
not for far, but while they were a-poSkin’ and a-paarih’ who
should come up but old Jimmy Griggs the fiddler. Jimmy was
af eared o’^aught and he sa’* ‘Clear away, together, I’m a-goin’ in,’
and in he went i^pd his^dog^Trap with him.

“Jimmy had his fiddle with him, and he sa’; ‘I’ll keep on
a-playin’ and yow together goo along the top*o’ the bank and then
yow’ll knev’ wharc 1 am.’ An’, so they did an’ they haard him
a-playin’ under the ground, just one tune and then another. All
er a sudden the tune stopped and they couldn’t haar anything.
They called and shouted but, sir, nty grandsir said as how there
wor never a sound.

“Sum said one thing and sum said another, but while they Trere
a-considerin’ what tu du, one on ’em sa’; ‘Why if h*ere ain’t old
IVap’ and thare was the dog beside ’em slire enulT, with his tail
atween his legs and a-shiverin’ as if he wor mortal skeerecL

“They went back to the hole, sir, ai»*l peepec^in but it wor dark
as the grave and jest as quiet. They never saw Jimm my more,
and in the night thare was a storm such as they had ne\er known
afore, and when mornin’ came that place whare h<^ went in wa%
all broken down ’er haap and folks told the tale far and wnde that
Jimmy Griggs the fiddler had been carried off by the Black Monk.

“Yes, sir, I s’posc they ought to ha’ sarched further, but they
didn’t and poor old Griggs had ne’er a friend to trouble arter
him and wc haard no more about it. But ever sin’ then they lia’
called that bank ‘Fiddler’s Hill’.*'

Between Wells and Blakeney lies th- tiny coastal villtge of
Wiveton, with a small but really lovel}- Elizabethan Hall. Of
this house, the issue of Norfo^ and \oncich Notes and

I 141

,SOME EAST ANQLIAN HAUNTINGS

Queries for February 3rd, 1900, had a highly inteaesting
story* to tell, which was quoted from an unnamed American
newspaper of some date presumably of that peripd. The sto%'
was as follows:

In one of thj least known villages on the Norfolk coast, a place
called Wiveton, is dn Elizabethan house named Wiveton Hall. It
is in a fine state prese^ration and looks quite likely to last
another three centuries, in spite of t^e terrific gules* whicb vent
their full lage on its exposed and weather-beaten walls.

In* this andent hou'Sle, some years since, was discovered a door,
heavily plated with iron, givir% access to some room which had
been closed and unentered for probably half a oentury. The
former occupa/its of the place seem^to have felt no particular in-
terest as to what might be behind this mysterious door and so left
it undisturbed. OA the house changing hand.s, the new proprietor
was of a more curious disposition and determined to have the door
opened. The iron plates were cut through and after considerable
trouble access was obtaiiuid to the chamber. It proved to be
absolutely empty and the floor had entirely rotted away.

On one of the walls, however, was the impress of a hand made
wtlh some dark pigment, giving the idea that someone had smeared
his hand \fith it and then pressed it on the wall, palm downwards.
This pigment was s^d to have been human blood, but as to the
tnitbpOf this we cannot say. One can only wonder what dark
tragedy this room, so lon^untenanted, may hide.

If you go south by east of Wiveton along the coast, you
come to the bleakly beautiful and windy little village of
flasbro’, famous for its lighthouse and its wrecks. At I lashro’,
which the maps and guide-books spell Ilappisburgh, they
have a remarkable ghost story, well told by the late Iv. R.
Suffling many yeai^s ago, in his History and Legends of the
Broads District.

The story, acfcor^ing to Suffling, who was writing at the
end tJf the last century, centres on Pump Hill. He says:

When following incidents occurred I cannot exactly say, but
from all accounts it must have been at the beginning of the present

^42

LKGLESS AND HEADLESS

centyry, when a cbod business ws^ done in this village in th^
landing of silk, late, tobacco, spirits, etc., under cover of*night
and a sovereign to cqyer each eyc^f the authorities.

It appFear8*that farmers coming home lat^at night were some-
times terribly frightened at a figure they aaw. coming up the main
street of tlic vil^<;e from the direction of the CJjiu Gap. It was an
unusual figu-e, even for a ghost, for althoifgh it m^e good pro-
gress, it was legless and, I mjght add, h^^krss, for its head hung
down its back between tjje shoulders. In its arms it carried a long
bundle, but w^at the package contained none knew, not even
those who had seen it.

It was evidently a sailor, for' it was dressed in the petticoat-
looking g|rment in vogue among sea-faring men in those days,
moreover it w'o^‘ a brpad ^^athern belt with a h^ige brass buckle,
in which was thrust a pistol and a long pig-tail graced its head, it
nearly tnuled the ground.

After sfV'Tal farmers had been frightened nearly out of their
lives by this legless mariner, two of them, more hardy than the
rest, resolved to watch his ghosU5hip^ Several nights they watched
vainly, but at'last one night came tlte bold smuggler sure enough
and the farmers quakingly followed it. Although its head was
reversed and turned a«ay from the direction in which irwas
going, it still kept a straight course along the middle of the road
until It came to the well; here it paused add balancing its burden
in its arms, dropped it endways down the mouth and aftefcgliding
aimlessly around for a minute or so, *j*jietly distppear-d down the

well also.

'riic farmers’ storv was next day told at a village c.juncil and
bv manv heartily laughed at. . . . At length it was agreed t<j
search the Well, so ropes and ladders, etc., being proeured, a
volunteer was quickly found to make the descent. A lighted candle
was first lowered in a ball of clay to test the atmosphere, which
being found pure, a looped rope, in whicji a youne man was

seated, was carefully lowered.

Forty feet he went down with a lantern*Pi4t tould see nothing,
and was being hauled up again when he caught sight of a piece of
dark blue cloth hanging on a projecting brick. This w;^s evnbited.
and again voung Harmer descended, this Ume armed wiA a long
clothes prop. Anxious moments f 9 llowed and then came his xoice

*43

SOME EAST ANG.LIAN HAUNTINGS

up the well-shaft in strangQ'sepulchral tones***! can feel soroething
soff at the bottom.”

Accordingly an iron hake (pot-hook) tiqd to a clothes line was
lowered to him, aiyl after a while he^succeeded inVntatigling it in
something. He was hauled up and then'the clothes line too, and at
the end of it «afne up a sodden sack tied at the mouth. It was
eagerly opened ancf a 'pair of boots protruded, which upon being
withdrawn were fdti^^l to contain^the legs of their owner hacked
off at the thighs.

Harmer was asked to trj' his luck down the Wf 11 once more, but
he declined to ventiii^e, his find having shaken his nerves ver\'
considerably. With the help of a little Dutch courage a fisherman
was at length prevailed upon to gp dowm and sec vijpat he could
grapple. Dow«^ he went and those vyho ^ould ^rowd near enough
to the Well-side to peer down, saw him at work angling with h»s
line and hake; but^a long time went by without any result. Some-
thing soft he could feel with the clothes prop, but he could not
hook it; he w^anted more refreshment, so a bottle of rum and
water, attached to a string, ftvas lowered to him.

After a refresher he ag^n w^ent to work, and presently hooked
a weighty object and gave the signal to haul him up; ju.st as they
M^e doing this, the **object'' w-as hauled from the water by those
in charge of the clothes line, putting his light out. However, the
villagers hauled at b<5th ropes and the fisherman quickly appearetl,
beariag in his arms, or rather half-supporting, a huge mass of
what looked like^wet clothing.

Quickly dropping it on the ground upon arriving on terra firma,
he turned it over and to the horror of those present, revealed to
view the decomposed body of a man, whose head was only
attached to the body by a small flap at the back of the neck.
There was the broad leathern belt with a pistol still hanging in ii.
and the peculiar petticoat of the period; in fact every thing just as
the farmers had dc^ribed as appertaining to the ghost.

Search was made and in a week or so, evidence was brought to
show that the Bl^clc-bearded sailor had been murdered near the
Caat Gap, as a large patch of blood and the correspondwig pistol
to that ii^^his belt, was found in a desolate bullock-shed close by.
Three or four gold pieces were also found embedded in the earth
and fragments of three empty Schiedam bottles were strewn

44

THE LONG coastguard”

( «

about. Nothing ever discoveredof the murderers, nor was it
ever heard who the murdered man was.

It was at the timetsupposcd tITat there had been a row among
some smugglers and that in dividing their ^oil one of them had
quarrelled with his comftdes, who had killed him by nearly sever-
ing his head from his body, and that to mak^ the corpse easier
of carriage to the Well, they had hacked oft his leg^ and placed
them in the sack in whic^ thf y wcJ^i fou#d.* The money trodden
int(? the sflil ^ves colouroto the theory of the division of the spoil
and the brokenjjottlcs (three) shows there’must have been several
carousers.

Not far ^om Hasbro’ is^acton, haunted by “The Long
Coastguardsman**. Howaiks to Mundesley oitdark nights as
the clock strikes twelve. He loves storms yid gales, when he
sings and shouts at the top of his voice. If there is a lull in
the shrieking ol the wiiid, he laughs loudly, whilst at other
times his cries for help can be hejrd from far off. No one
knows who he is. Few people havejieard him. But everyone
knows someone w ho has.

Probably the best known and certainly the best autheati-
catetl Norfolk ghost story is that of the ghost of Mannington
Hall, a lovely old fifteenth-century moSted mansion about
two miles from Corpusty, for long the propertv of thft Wal-
poles and tenanted for some years hy a frifnd of my o^vo,
who certainly did not deny the story to me.

'Fhe Mannington ghost has been written of at various
times, sometimes in garbled fashion, but I think there can be*
no doubt of the sober authenticity of the account given in the
eighties by the late Dr. Augustus Jessop, the well-known anti-
quary', who distinctly saw the ghost while staying at the Hall.

His account of it appeared in the At/iehaeum ot January
1880, and is as follows.

On the 10th of October, 1879, Dr Jc^iop droy to 1 -ord
Or ford’s from Norwich. It was his intention to sptnd some time
at the Hall in examining and making extracts from various scarce

SOME EAST ANQLIAN HAUNTINGS

works which he had longt* been seeking for, and which Jie now
ledirnt were in Lord Orford’s library. He arrived at Mannington
at four in" the afternoon, and, after jome^agreeable converse tic>n,
dressed for dtnne;.. Dinner took place at seven, and Was partaken
of by six persons, including Dr. ‘J«s6p and his host. The con-
versation is dac^ared to have been of a pleasant character, to have
been chie^y concerned with artistic questions, and the experiences
of men of the worjuj and^’to hijye never trenched upon super-
natural subjects.

After dinner cards were introduced, and at 4taif*past ten, two
of tlie gut.sts having to leave, the party broke up. Dr. Jessop now
desired to be permitted to sit up for some hours in order to make
extracts from the works already referred to. Lord ^rford wished
to leave a valrt with his guest, but^he Pocto|:, deeming that thi.s
might embarrass him, and cause him to go to bed earlier than he
wished, requested to be left alone. This was agreed to, the ser-
vants were dismissed and his host and his other guests retired to
their rooms, so that by eleven o’clock Dr. Jessop was the only
person downstairs.

The apartment in whidh he was preparing to .set to work for a
few hours is a large one with a huge hre- place and a great old-
fashioned chimney, and is furnished with every' luxury'. The
library, w'hence Dr. Jessop had to bring such volumes as he needetl
opens into this rooift, and in order to obtain the works he vvantctl
he had not only to.go into it, but when there, to mount a chair, to
•get down the bdok he required.

In his very circumstantial account of the affair the antiquary
relates that he had altogether six small volumes, which he took
down from their shelves and placed in a little pile on the table at
his right hand. In a little while he was busily at work. Somt'timi's
reading, sometimes writing, and thoroughly absorbed in his occu-
pation. As he finished with a book, he placed it in front of him,
and then proceed^ with the next, and so on until he had only one
volume of his little pile of tomes left to deal with.

The antiquifty^ ming as he states, of a chilly temperament, sat
himself at a corqer of the table with the fire-place at his left.
Occasiot)ally he rose, knocked the fire together, and .stood up to
warm h'is feet. In this mdhner he went on until nearly i o’clock,
when he appears to have congratulated himself upon the rapid

TH-E MANNINQTON GHOST

progvss he had ma'de with his taslcj^and that after all he should
get to bed by two. He got up and wound his watch, opeftcd a
bottle of seltzer water, and then,* re-seating himself^at the table,
upon which *were four silver candlesticl^ containing lighted
candles, he set to work hpon the last little book of the heap.

What now happened must be told in Dr. Jej^p’s own words:
“1 had been engaged upon it about half an Wr [rej,crring to the
volume] and was just beginning to think my work was draw-
ing^o a clf)sc*when, as 1 was actually wrimig, I saw a large white
hand within a fgot of my elbow.

“Turning my head, there sat a figure of a somewhat largt man,
with his back to the fire, bendtng slightly over the table, and
apparcntly^examining the pile of books I had been engaged upon.
The man’s face jvas tiynet^away from me, but ^saw his closely-
cut, reddish-brown hair, his ear and shaved cheek, the eyebrows,
the corner of the right eye, the side of the fotehead and the large
high cheek ^'one.

“He was dres.sed in what I can only describe as a kind of ecclesi-
astical habit of corded silk, close uplto the throat, with a narrow
rim of edging of about an inch broad of satin or velvet serving as
a stand-up collaf and fitting close to the chin. The right hand,
which had first attracted my attention, was clasping withoutHiny
great pressure the left hand; both hands were in peffect repose,
and the large, blue veins of the right hand were conspicuous. I
remember thinking that the hand was like the hand of VeJgjiqdcz’s
magnificent “Dead Knight" in the National Galkery.

“I looked at my visitor for some seconds, and wa perfectly
sure that he was not a reality. A thousand thoughts came crowding
upon me, but not the least feeling of alarm or even uneasiness;
curiosity and a strong intert*st were uppermost. For an ipstant I
felt eager to make a sketch of my friend, and I looked at a tray
on my right for a pencil; then I thought, ‘Upstairs I have a sketch
book; shall I fetch it.^’

“'Fhere he sat, and I was fascinated — afraicl, not of his stayihg,
but lest he should go. Stopping in my wftti|ig>, I lifted my left
hand fsom the paper, stretched it out to the pile of book^and
moved the top one. I cannot explain v hy "I did this — m’ arm
passed in front of the figure, and it vanished.

“I was simply disappointed, and nothing more. I went on with

• i4r

SOME EAST ANGLIAN IIAUNTINGS

i

my writing as if nothing happened, perhaps for ano^er five
minutes, and had actually got to the last feW words of what 1 had
determined to extract, when die figure appeared again, exactly in
the same place an<j attitude as before.

“I saw the hands plosje to my own; 'I turned my head again to
examine him ipare closely, and I was framing a sentence to address
him, when I discovered that I dare not speak; I was afraid of the
sound of my ownwoice. TJhere he sat, and there sat I. I turned
my head again to my work, and finished writing ihe-two oi three
w'ords T still had to 'write. The paper and my. notes are at this
momeni before me and exhibit not the slightest tremor or nervous-
ness. I could point out the words 1 was writing when the
phantom came and when he disappeared. ■!

“Having finished my task, I shut, the jx)ok and threw it on the
table. It made a slight noise as it fell, and the figure vanished.

“Throwing myself back in my chair, I sat for some seconds
looking at the fire with a curious mixture of feeling, and 1 remem-
ber wondering whether my friend would come again, and, if he
did, whether he would hide the fire from me. Then first there
stole upon me a dread and a suspicion that 1 was beginning to
lose my nerve. I remember yawning; then I rose and lit my bed-
room candle, took my books into the inner library, mounted tlie
chair as before, and replaced five of the volumes; the sixth 1
brought back, and laid it upon the table where 1 had been writing,
wheit the phantom did me the honour to appear to me.

, .“By this tim« I had la$t all sense of uneasiness. I blew out all
the candles and marched off to bed, where I slept the sleep of the
just — or the guilty, I know not which, but I slept very .soundly.
And that is the conclusion of the story'; but whether hallucination,
spectral illusion, or trickery, no one has been enabled to prove,
and as the hero of the tale declines to proffer explanation, theory,
or inference, the affair continues to be a mystery.”

An equally famous Norfolk ghost, by no means so well-
authenticated, is fne Brown Lady of Raynham Hall„the seat
of the Marquess Townshend, Lady Dorothy Nevill, in her
book, Mmnington and the Walpoles, calls her '‘the ill-
fated Dorothy, who married Charles, second Viscount

>48

THE BROWN LADY

Townsbend and wfio died tragic^Iy by falling down the;
grand staircase ana became the terror of the visitors ‘and
sejvants at Ra3;nham’i.

But the ’contemporary announcement j»f her death fixes
the date as Mar9h 29th, 1726, and* says she died of
smallpox.

When the Townslund heirlooms were sold at Christies in
March 190^, iier portntit Was cfescrib#^ as “The Brown
Lady. Dorothy Walpole, wife of the«secQnd and most famous
Marquess Townshend.” She is said to- have been a young
and beautiful girl forced to niJfrry an old man against her
will; but P|ter Wentworth^ writing to Lady Strafford on
February 20th, ^1713^ s^'s; “Here is an ^extraordinary
wedding a going to be- Lord 'I'ounscnd to Dolly Walpole —

I can’t tell you whethere you know her cArccter but she is
won [oncj f .'a ’ Wharton 'kept'."

The late Walter Rye, who knew more about Norfolk his-
tory than most. people, said that slfe was supposed to haunt
the State Bedroom, where she frigfltcncd George IV, when
Prince Regent, out of his wits. He reported that he saw “a
little lady all dressed in brown with dishevelled hair and a
face of ashy paleness" by his bedside andi‘‘with many oaths”
said; "I will not pass another hour in this accursed house,
for I have seen that what I hope tj) God l,may neVer see
again."

Walter Rye then says: "It is a pity to have to disbe..eve the
story told so minutely how the Brown Lady had been seen
by the servants and was waited up for by the gentlemen— how
they stayed two nights in the corridor playing ecarte, with
two game-keepers at each door how they saw nothing the
first two nights but that in the middle of th^ third, one of the
keepers called out “Phere she lx*’ and tjiey^saw her come
through the wall at them - how one gentlrtnan most wisely
flattened* himself against the wall, to gct<is far as pOs?tt)le
from her, but the other boldly stretchiu^ out his aftns till he
touched cither side of the corridor was passed through by

C.A.W.— II

SOME BAST ANGLIAN HAUNTINGS

her like smoke is passed trough, and how they both jaw her
disappear through another wall/’

What would seem to be tHfe best sumpiing-up of this
disputed story, wus given in the East Anfflian Ildnd^book in
June 1885, which printed the following:

Lady Dorothy Townshend, whom tradition still credits with
haunting the staironl»e of^Raynham Hall, was^the daug|iter of
Robert Walpole of ^loughton, to whT>sc care the young Viscount
Toy^nshend had beeij entrusted. Young Townshend conceived an
ardent affection for his gua*'dian’s daughter, but his suit was
refused by her father on the ground that suspicion would be
attached to himself of compassik.g a match so ad/anlageous to
himself and family by improper means. DorOchy was then scarce
fifteen. Lord Towmshend twelve years older and he, obeying his
guardian’s monition, married another lady in 1699.

After her death, however, he returned to his first love, and was
united to Dorothy Walpo|e in the July of 1713, she being then in
her twenty-sixth year. According to the legend an estrangement
took place between therS, the wife was kept strailly within her
own apartments and harshly, if not cruelly, treated by her hus-
liand, til\ on March 29th, 1726, she died of a broken heart, since
which time she has from time to time traversed in ghostly guise
the scenes of her mortal sufferings, haunting especially the oaken
stairease of Ravnham Hall.

But truth, historical tiVith, is totally at variance with the legend.
She reatly died of smallpox on the date named, but regretted and
lamented by all who knew her, specially so by her husband, whose
grief was most intense. She died in the 40lh year of her age,
gentfrally and justly lamented for her uncommon merit and the
accomplishments of her mind as well as of her person. Lord
Townshend, after resigning the post he held under the fJovern-
jnent, passed the remainder of his life in seclusion.

Wolterton Hail, not far from Mannington, is the present
seSf of Lord^ Walpole. It was badly damaged by fire early in
1953, Lord Walpole ^ells me that he intends to restore *it.
This house, a superb example of its period, is supposed to be

150

THE- WALPOLE .WHITE LADY

hauntq4 by a W^te Lady. Aco^rding to Lady Dorothy
Nevill, Ambassador Horace Walpole married a Miss Lom-
bard. A large Conversation Plfece was painted, *comprising
the Ambassador and his wife and seven w eight children,
some of them represented as angels, smc; they apparently
died as babies. Lady Dorothy’s father cuvhfefpicture up and
gave the portrait to different members of the •family, the
desceyidants of the original figures in tlfi^ Conversation Piece,
and according to Lady Dorothy: “‘Th^ unhappy wife. Miss
Lombard, is saiB to haunt Wolterton seeking for her divided
relatives.”

She goesAin to say:

For many yca'rs Wolterton was abandoned as a residence and
left to desolation and decay; but shortly aft.er my nephew, the
present lyord Orford, succeeded to the estate, he decided to return
to the home of his ancestors, and during the last few years has
done cvetything in his power to restere the house to its old state
and replace as' many of the contents^as can be gathered together
— a difficult task in which, however, owing to untiring effort, he
has been extrenuly successful. . . .

There was at Wolterton a Nelson room, in whieh the great
.Admiral had slept on a visit. Nelson’s picture — a personal gift —
painted by Lane, is now, unfortunately, lost to us for ever, for it
was burnt in the great fire at the Pantjchnicon,^here it Uad been
deposited for safe keeping. . . . My fatf.e: was veiy ic 1 of birds
and the lawns and pastures used to be enlivened by th presence
of golden pheasants and other feathered pets of brilliant plumage.
Now once again these lawns and walks, where I played as a child,
are resuming .something of their old appearance, after forty years
of neglect and destruction; my nephew, the present Lord Orford,
as I have before said, having piously devoted much time, thought
and money to restoring the home of his forefathers to its original
state.

Theiy is a family ghost at Wolterton, whiefi at intervals^ is«en
by old ser\'ants about the place. .A W’hite Lady is said to be in^
the habit of appearing whenever sonif caiuinity is aboufto threaten
our family. Some little time before my brother, the late Lord

I5J

SOME EAST ANQLIAN HAUN-TINGS

Orford, died in 1894, I u^ll recollect his spying to me, “I hear
frofta Norfolk that the White Lady has been seen again. It is you
or I this time, Dolly, for we ate the only ^nes left”

The White Lady in question is supposed to^ be bne of tfic
, Seamier family, who*wese the possessots of Wolterton before my
ancestor built tly: present mansion. There u'sed to be some story
that one of the Lords Orford unearthed,^ the old tombstones of
the Scamlers in thb Qiined^-churqh in Wolterton Park, and that
this act of sacrilege liras the cause of the poor lafi^'V spirit'being
so distort «ed. But I have recently discovered t^at no act of this
kind'was ever perpetrated at all, so it must be for some other
reason that the ghostly dame lingers about Wolterton. In old days
the Walpoles used to be driven tn^heir hearse three^imes around
this ruined clyirch before being laid to, rest i^ the family vault.
Certainly Lady Walpole of WoltertQn (Pierre Lombard’s daughter)
was buried with this ceremonial.

CHAPTER IX

On WJlls=oJ-therWisp and
Corpse Candles

W HEN the fen farmer of pi^-1914 days rattled home
from market in spring cart or high-w heeled gig*, he
drove to his lonely thatched homestead over sofjt and peaty
roads, where wheels sank deep and ^hockheaded willows
edged bottomless dykes, shining dully in the moon. A flat
^nd misty land where plover wailed, cattlg snuffle in the
fog, and on nights of spring, the cTetp ind ghoid boo'm*of
the bittern sounded hollow in the dark.

Often have I heard that muffled, thudding “oomp-oomp-
br’oomp!” which is like no other sound on earth.^ That*
alone, is enough to chill the blood of any man unaccustomed
to it who finds himself on a dark night in a dark world of
whispering reeds and wailing peewits, of owls, and sheep
that cough in the mist, like men whose throats have been cut.
Imagine, then, the terror of the Fenfirn* homing down a
lonely •drove” through such a wild andjiianless mar^Iend
world, when he sees, flitting over the 'gs and stinking pools;
a lambent yellow flame, like a ’candle in a horn lantern,

*53

ON WILLS-0 **THE“WISP AND CORPSE CANbLES

bobbing up and down, as Qne said to me like a hoppity little
owd man vvi’ a wooden leg^’.

If this miHnight light of mystery, the dreaded Will-o’-thc-
Wisp or Jack-o’-Lantern, came bobbing* along ^he tough fen
drove, it was ten to iona that the fanner’s horse w’ould shy
and tip the caruipto the dyke. If the man was on foot, he ran
for his life, er, if of sterner or more inquisitive stuff, followed
the Will, only to Idhdtup t6 his neeje in some rotten svvamp
which closed over him.

Small wonder then, that, the fear of the Will, sometimes
called ^ob-o’-Lantern or th« Lantern Man- -in Swaffham
Fen, in Cambridgeshire, they are known as Jenny- Burnt-
Arses — is still a rooted belief irf all marshland areas. I’he
Will was, in reality, no more than d sp6ntan^ous combustion
of marsh gas which occurred on \varm nights in rotten bogs
and deep fen pools, but with the increased drainage of Fens
and marshes, the Will is no\\ almost unknown.

I am told that they still occur on certain bogs in West
Wales and it would never surprise me to see one on a hot
summer night round Barton Broad, on the swamps that lie
b^twben Hickling and Horsey, on the Martham Marshes,
about Upton Broad or, for that matter, in half a do?:(‘n other
places in Broadland. *

They^'ere spoken of as commonplace and comparati\ely^
recent occurrentfes in Wicken and Burwell I'ens in Cam-
bridgeshire when I was a boy. I remember, in about iqio, a
horseman, employed by the father of my old school friend,
Group-Captain Donald Fleming, D.f.c., who then lived
at Henhy Hill Farm, near Soham, fired his gun at one one
night and then bolted. The Norfolk Broads district, the
Fens, the North Kent Marshes and many of the Welsh marsh
districts, are full of\ales of Wills.

Mrs. Hilda M. JB^Jwn, of West Winds, Catherine Road,
WojjtJb^idge, Suffolk, whose father was a well-known yeoman
•farmer in ^he Cambridgeshire Fens, tells me that, in her
youth, coming* home one stimmer night between Whittlesey

*54

GRAVEYARD LIGHTS

and Sjandground^only three mile^ from the centre of Peter;
borough “one rose out of a swamp just at the bottom of
t|,ic bank I was walkmg along * I went down to*get a closer
view of ft, when it immediately dancQd away across the
fields. I’hat was the closest I have ever 4 ieen to one,

“My mother was awakened too, one njghtf by one shining
on the bedroom window, and as she watched it, "it seemed to
rise ^ip too ^d flit away across thc»fie 1 ds. It was a very
bright one. My grandftither, a I^nccjnshirc farmer and a
centenarian, u^d to say that when they were seen, ij was a
sign of rain very' soon.

“Some .^‘ars ago the Peterborough Advertiser printed an
article by W.H.B.S.^ in^ ^hich it stated: The favourite
haunts were r^iattcris,* ^Whittlesey, Peterborough, and
'I'liorney, but after 'I'urf Pen was dfained at Chatteris, they
were* rarely '-fn afterwards in that district.’ In some dis-
tricts," Mrs. Brown goes on, “they were red in colour, and
others like an <)rdinary candle in colour. The late Mr. T. W.
Iloltlitch, of Peterborough, referred to them as Corpse
C'andles. and tliere was an old tradition at Longthorpe, that
corpse candles would often arise out of the graves of tKose
newly interred, and one old resident there who lived opposite
the graveyard for some years, said that one night he.dis-
jinctlv saw three corpse candles r^se out the gftve of a
villager newly interred, and then disappear. ’

'Phat fascinating writer on the North Kent niai nes, who
wrote under the noni-dc~plume of Son of the Marshes”,
refers in several of his books to “corpse candles" being seen
on the marshes in the neighbourhood of Milton-ne\t-Sitting-
bourne, some sixty or se\cnty years ago, but personally I am
of the opinion that the Will-o’-thc-^^ isp, which actually
exists, is something tpiite diflerent from the alleged "corpse
candles” which are said to arise from^ganves of the newly
buried.

There is little doubt that Wills \ re seen as ceceutly as
1939 on my own, then undraineef. fen, a place of meres and

‘55

ON Wll.LS-0 -THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES

^teaming swamps in Bmpvell Fen, but powadays, since it
growl potatoes and corn. I should not expect to find one
nearer than the Norfolk Broads. I mi^st confess, howevcf,
that although I have rented seveiral hrge tracts of Broadland
marshes and know the district intimately, J have not yet had
the luck to see oAe. «

One of the best stories of a Norfolk Will, concerns the
light known as “Nea^fshea^ Jacl?*’, die details pf vyhich.were
published in Volume H of Norjolk Archaeology from
notes taken down by the Rev. John Gunn, ()f Irstead, from
IMrs. Lubbock, of that parish, *in 1849:

“Before the Irstead Enclosure in 1810 Jack-o’-Lantern was
frequently seeff here on a roky night.*anff almost always at a place
called 'Heard’s Hsie’ iir Alder Carr Fen Broad on the Neatis-
head side, where a man of that name, who was guilty of, some
unmentionable crimes, was drowned. I have often seen it there,
rising up and falling and twisting about and then up again. It
looked exactly like a candle^ in a lantern.”

^Shc evidently connected the “ignis fatuus” in that spot with
unhappy man’s spirit, as if it were still hovering about; and
Jack-o’-L»ntern was, in her apprehension, endued with volition
and intelligence; foi she affirms that if any one were walking
along the road with a lantern, at the time when he appeared and
did not put out ihc light ipimediately. Jack would come up againsu
it and dash it to pieces; and that a gentleman w^ho made a mock
of him and called him “Will of the Wisp” was riding on horse-
back one evening in the adjoining parish of Horning, when he
came at him and knocked him off his horse.

She remembers, when a child, hearing her father say that he
was returning home from a large (largess) money-spending at the
finish of harvest, in company with an old man, who whistled and
jeered at Jack; buf he followed them all the way home, and when
they entered th« house he torched up at the windows.

.The Ncati’^hcacf people were desirous to lay Heard’s jpirit, so
annoyed were they* by it; for it came at certain times and to cer-
tain plac& which he frcqycnted when alive. Three gentlemen
(she could not tell who or what they were, she supposed they

i«6

‘•‘THE LANTERN MAN”

wer^ learned) attempted to lay thg ghost by reading verses qf
Scripture. But he always kept a verse ahead of them. And they
could do nothing, till a boy brought a couple of pigeons and laid
them ddtvn before Aim. He looked at them and lost his verse;
and then they bound hit spirit.

One of the best and most amusing accounts «f a Norfolk
Lanyjrn May was givun Wy the lato Lfady Cranworth, of
Letton, in ait article sh^ wrote for. Vojume I of the Eastern
Counties MagUzine, in 1900, in which'she jaid:

Great mterest gathers round the “Will-o’-the-Wisp” which
seems to ne verj' well known here, though I personally have never
seen it. The local name*for it — or him — is v^iously “Hob-o*-
Lantern” or “The Lantern ^lan”.

We hav. in old horseman who has been with us for I should
be afraid to say how many yearSj . . . He said with great scorn,
“Ghosties! Who’s a-be!ieving in them? I’ve never seen naught
and I’ve forgotten all the tales 1 hejrd about such nonsense. .^11
I ever seed aboM the place and I’ve been out rain and fine at all
hours of the niglit was the Lantern mcii. I’ve seen them seizes
of times running about. They fare to come out o’ the ground and
run about and around. 1'hey tell me they’re wapers (vapours):

1 don’t know!”

'I’hcse Lantern men are commonlj suppos^ to be 3angerous
to life. “Folks du say that if one mat. .'.and at oue^ nd of the
field and another man stand over agin him in the ot. .r corner,
and they will whistle each to other, the Lantern man will always
run to the whistle. It is a gottd thing to know this as the^LanteriT
man will always try to come agin you and 10 kill ye, if so be he

Lsablc.” f . u j

A story which comes from Cromer illustrates further the danger

of falling in with the Lantern Men and end* up with some sound
advice as to the way of dealing with then* in «ase of need. It is

told by an old fisherman and runs thus:

“There’s no saying what that will du to* you, if that li.-hTon
youl TThere was a young fellow coiping .ome oncevAuiyg and he
sec the Lantern ^ian coming for him and he run; and that run.

IS7

ON \V|I-l.S-0’-THE-W!Sn AND CORPSE CANDLES

and he run again; and thal^-un again! Nowhere was a s^ly old
maA lived down there who didn’t believe in none o’ them things
and this young fellow he run^o his houtic and say, ’O Giles, for
Heaven's sake, let'tpe in the I^ntein Man’s coifiingf And oltl
Giles he say. ‘You ^illt; fi»l, tlierc fui’t no such thing as a
Lantern Man.’*^ut when he sec the Lantefn Man coming f« -
him, Giles Jet the young fellow in, and tl^^t come for them two,
till that was the of a f>int pyi!

“And >ld Giles, he thought he wouldiplay a trick^m Vlie I-dtiicrn
Man so he got a candle and held that out of thf window on the
end tif a pole. !\nd fust he held that out nght high; and the
Lantern Man. he come for that and he come underneath it Aiul
then he held that out right low anj^ the Lantern Mai%hc come up
above it. .“Vndifhcn he held that out ygh^ steady, and the Lantern
Man he come for that and he burst all to pieces

“But the\ du sa?', if the Lantern Man light up«)n you, the best
thing is to throw yourself flat on your face and hold your brs-ath ”

ITtis obviously refers to the danger of breathing the marsh
gas of which the Lantern Man is composed.

Syleham, a parish in the upper reaches of the Ri\er
Waveney, iVills-o’-the-Wisp were so common eighty or
ninety years ago, that they were known as Syleham Lights,
and the late \V. A.'Dutt, in that charming book 77ir Xorfolh
Brpa4land, speaks of aij old inn-keeper who had " hearth
tell” of a, ball of flame which was seen to float acrf)ss the
marshes and then, when it reached the river, clung for a
jvhile to the mast of a wherry’. This phenomenon has been
recorded more than once in the past, and reminds one of the
seamen’s tales of corposants or St. Klmo’s Fire, the balls of
light which are sometimes seen on ships during storms.

.The late Reveregid Charles Kent, for many years a well-
known parson iy the Breckland district, referred to Wills-o’-
the-Wisp in his bbok The Land of the Babes in the Wood,
bu^saifl that, in hts district, they were known as "Shiners"
and were Regarded with mprtal terror by the villagers. I can
only conclude that Mr. Kent’s "Shiners” must have been

1^8

A GHASTLY GRAVE

seen on or about T6mston Water pr Stanford Mere, the two
great Breckland lakes on Lord Walsingham’s estate whicfi
C^harles Kent knew so’ well.

A writ* in Norfolk and Norwich Nofes and Queries on
December 3tst, 1004, 'had an amusing st)ry to tell which
confirms some olcf village beliefs that thf fprmless Will-o’-
the-Wisp was a feroaious evil spirit that would attack a man
on sight, although, in my native fens,*thS legend is that the
Will, instead of attackin'!;, sought t# legjl one to a watery and
ghastly grave ifi the deepest and .smelliest f^rt of the,Fen —
which would inevitably have happened had one been fool
enough to follow it. 'I'hat is the more general and sensible
belief.

'I’he writer in \otes an^ Queries, however, Jays:

Nobot'} V . sets the “Lantern Man” in these days, but in
gran' pa’s \oung da\s he was al^-ays about on the marshes on
“roky” nights and many’s the stout fliarshman who has attempted
to follow him and found himself up^o his knees in some treach-
erous swamji. f'rdinary folks have heard of Jack-o’-Lanterng as
a mere flickering light, pale and intangible and always far twery.
Not so the marshmen. Why, some of them have b#en followed
by the fiery sprite, and when they got indoors have seen their
winrlow's lighted up by the thwarted bogie. Once a man^was'jog-
ging homeward in the dark, carrying# lantern «s a mi'd guide Jto
his doubtful footsteps and .Master Jack tame out ol ^ * swamp
and followed him! The man knew what to do. He just ^tood the
lantern down and ran for all he w.rs worth. When he turned round
to look, there was jack, kicking* tlie lantern about with all the rage
imaginable.

Christopher Davies, in Norfolk Broads ^and Rivers, men-
tioned seeing a Will-o’-the-\Visp frequently some sevefily
years ago. 1 le quotes a wherryman as sr^Vi^f that he always
fired his*gun at them to put them out, for "if you did n*t ^e
at them, they were likely to come nea ’ou and^do*you aome*
hurt". M. E. Walcott, in The East Coast of England, 1864,

15 ^

ON VVILLS-O'-THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES

$ays of the Horning district, ‘‘J^ck-o^-Lantern haunts these
m£U“slics and torments homeward bound farmers, knocking
them down'^and dismounting them.*' That is obvious non-
sense. The farmerSehad clearly made a night of it af the Ferry
Inn, and fell off their horses with fright or were thrown when
the animals rear^^^d pn their hind-legs as any horse would do
if one put a'' ball of fife under its nose, k like much better the
story of the IIornihg^)onk^ey, told by Suffling^^in The Inno-
cents on the Broads, to wk:

I can’t say as I’ve seen a liuman ghost, but I have seen the
Horning ghost in the Long Lane — that’s the ghos^ of a dickey
(donkey) yer know.

I wuz comifig from Walsham one night in lK‘e winter-lime, and
I don’t know how it widz, but suthin’ fare tu say to me- '‘Look
behind.”

Well, I must, fule like, look roun’, ’cause I fancied I could hear
sumthin’ go clickerty click/ clickerty click, behind me. Sure null,
there came a white dickey lopin’ along the road, all alone. I felt^
a bit scart and my old hobby pricked up har lugs as much as to
-say “Hello, hu’s this a follerin’ me?” Prc^sently I pulled up short
like and the white dickey he pull up tu. Then when 1 go on, he
go on, and vv’en I stop, he stop. So thinks 1, yew ain’t no ghost
anyhow. Then a 'bright idea cum inter me hid. “I’ll go back and
see whb’s donkgi’ ’tis.”

So I tamed round and back I go, and when I’d got almost up
to the white dickey who stud right in the middle o’ the road
facin’ me, my old hobby stopped short and nearly hulled me outer
the cart. Poor ole girl she whinntVd wi* fright and roun’ she
came* of her own accord and along the lane she go as hard as she
could clap her fower huffs to the ground.

But it worn’t no use; this here while dickey sune began to
•sphorten the distantc and every time I Kwked roun’ it wuz higher.
Lord, I felt allgof apiuck sweat and I know me eyeballs .stood out
so that any one might ha’ chopped ’em out wi’ a h(X)k. Closer it
fum/and close; aft’ when 1 looked roun’ agin, it wuz just bchin’
with smdke cornin’ outer i^ nostcrcls like out of a furnace, and I
du believe there wruz a little pink flame with it, but thet I ain’t

o

THE LUDHAM SERPENT

sure ^bout, cuz I^wuz upset. Bul.^iis I du know the smell
sulphur was nght powerful.

1 pulled old Cally— short for Salifornia — inter th? deck (dyUe)
and past^amS this hA-e white dickey and sur« nuff it wuz a ghost
arter all, for I could st^ every bar of^a g^t'e by the rodeside rite
trew its maizey b<fdy.

My ha r must av^riz on me hid, for orP went njc hat. Away
went ihe dickey up the Lon|^ Laneslcadi^ past the church to the
villllge, and Jway went ^d Cally arter itf full tare, and think’s I
wot’s agoen to happen nixt.

Why it came to an ind like a flflsh.. When rfic dickey aome to
the churchyard wall it plumpec! trew it jest as easy as I could
poke inv linger trew a pat^f butter and wot’s more it didn’t
di.starb a single |toon th^ thick wall.

Yew may laff, but ne.\’ ijiornin’ when I went' ter look for my
hat -’cause I dussen’t goo back that night — 1 took a good view o’^
the'chup'l.' "H wall, and there worn’t a hole in it nowhere, and
not a sinj'.lc print of a dickey’s hutl^ in the roadway.

At Ludhani, that pleasant old ^narshland village on the
tortuous waters of the Ant, which is mainly notable for.the
remains of a once-beautiful Old Hall, most of which* xV&s
burned down in i6i i, they have the legend of tfie Ludhahr
Serpent. Xow this mighty snake which terrorised the entire
parish, seems to have existed in actual fact, for in th»X or folk
Chronicle of September 28th, there app' tred* the

following:

On Mondav the 14th inst.»a snake of an enormous size w'a»
destroyed at laulham in tliis County by Ja..per Andrew^ of that
place. It measured 5 ^ inches long, was almost 3 feet in

circumference and had a veiy long snout. \\ hat is remarkable
there were two excrescences on the forepart of the head which
very much resemblcii horns. T he crej^ure ^seldom made its
appea^nce in the day time but kept conctSled in subterranean
retreats several of which have been discovered in the tctv\^,%)ne
near the bake-office and another on l. ; premis^jp trf the Revd?
N. V. Jeffrey and another in the land occupied by Mr. Popple at

ON WILLS-O’-THE-WISP AND CORPSE CANDLES
^ •

the Hall. The skin of th^/ibove surprising reptile is now in the

C session of Mr. J. Garrod, a wealthy farmer in the'neigh-
rhood. ’

There is also a*story, somewhat later fit date,*I think, of two
snakes six feet long ^ach^ attacking a lAan at Dcrcham.

Female grass snakes, in marshy are^s, not uncommonly
grow to a length of ^ feet% inche%— I killed one myself of
that size in Wicken^Feij — but the* chances are that ’these
serpents were foj:eigners which had escaped from ships that
had docked at Yarmouth, and had made their way inland. A
similar legend of a great snake which came out ^f Bulphan
Fen, exists at Herongate in £ss%x, where it is said to have
been slain by Sir John Tyrell of Hefon^Iall.*

. Sailors are notoriously superstitious, and coastal fishermen
share most of their beliefs. I have spent many years of my
life fishing and wildfowlinp on the eastern coasts of England,
from the Isle of Harty on the Kentish Swale, a land of
sheep and houseless marshes, to the wide and shining mud-*
flats of the Essex Blackwater, the manless stretches of the
Norfolk cojst and as far north as the haunted land of I loly
island, where Saint Columba lit the first faint lamp of Christ-
ianity in this realm.

One ctf the m<)st remarkable first-hand ghost stories I ever,
heard was of a spectral Viking. It was told me in a wild-
fowler’s hut built from the timbers of a stranded barge on
Canvey Island, some twenty-five years ago. 'I’he teller was
tharlie Stamp, the wildfowlef and fisherman of C!anvey
Point, a mahogany-skinned, sharp-eyed little man, with gold
earrings in his ears, as tough as old wire nails, and as full of
s.alt- water wisdom ^s an oyster is of meat.

r have told the story in another book. Coastal Adventure,
but I make no apolbgy for telling it here again, as Charlie
tol^ if me that night, sitting in the semi-dark with thb fire of
§hips’ timber^ sputtering blue and red as the flames got at
the tar. It is one of the most astonishing stories of a ghost I

1J2

The Ghost of a Viking

THE LORD OF SHOREL,A;fD

have ever heard from any countryman, and, told t^at night,
with the winter v9lnd rattling the*windows and the cufleWfe
o*' the mud-flats outsifie, it had an unoanny air of

reality.

I laid in me tPucklc bed lookin’ out o^ the winder of » mid-
night [said Charlie], Bright moon that wad; brtght^s day. An’ I
reckon I had a dream. d^reamt^there was an owd feller come
up over ^he*saltin’s, o\^r the wall an’ the plank into my

garden. A n?m owd feller. He stood si.’f foot. He had a leather
jerkin on wi’ a belt an’ a sv/ord aitd ctoss-garl 4 *rs below lys knees.
He had a funny owd hat on his*head— like a helm that was, with
wings on. •An’ long moustaches an’ a beard.

^‘I’ve lost ship, ma^,’ he say. “I want to get a ship back
t(^ me own countr}\ I^m a l<^t man.”

“Goo you up to Grays or Tilbur},”#,! sajs. “You’ll get a ship
these, i.iaU, M jarr}' yo\ to any port in the world.”

He wagged his owd head an’ looked at me right sorrowful. “I
count 1 *on’t find no ship to take mt to my port. I’m a lost man.”

An’ he walked over that sea-wall, master, an’ away out on the
marsh, an’ I n \er seed him no more?

.\cross the grey and misty estuary of the Thames, w^hS:^
Charlie has fished and fowled all his life, a buccaneer before
the Lord, there lies the Isle of Sheppey, with the gaunt and
ruined shell of the once-great CSstL of Shuiia d, wh^re
lived the Lord of Shoreland, whom Parson Barha i immor-
talised in his Ingoldshy Legends.

' When I go fowling in the*winter dusk on the sheep-w^alksf
of Sheppey, or the lower marshes of the little, lonely Isle of
1 larty, which is part of Sheppey, save when big tides ffow, as
they flowed in IQ53, through the “low-ways’" where once tall
ships sailed, the marshmen lell me that, cfti nights of howling
gale and lashing sea you may see “Old Shporeland’s lights”
bobbing along the foreshore, following the edge of the Jjun^ry
tide, seeking for the poor drowmed nef battered b^ies of
sailors cast ashore. And when the shelduck, that handsome

O.A.W. —12 ^^5

ON WILLS-o’VTHE-WISP and corpse candles

half-goose, half-duck whom the marshmen call the bargoosc
or bvgandcr, laughs his gliastly mirth far'^out in the channel,
they say that it is the voice *if drowned sailors mocking the
living about to drown.

That almost forgotten chroni^fer of this Kentish half-land
of the sea, “A Son of the Marshes", tells in one of his books
of a wild night spent fdwling with two fishermen on the mud-
flats of the Swale whrn thd gale^oy led, the sea groaned on
the bar, and all niglft the sky was Llivc with- the cries and
whistles, tne clanging and clamour of gulls end wild geese,
ducks and waders, flighting restlessly over the yeasty waters.
One of the tishenuen turned to him and said:

When we h^rted I thought we shcfald^ia’ h.ifl a job to load an’
lire fast enough, h'>t not a shot sHall we git tonight oi niormn’
proper; the minster hev'juNt hanged out three o’elotkf ’rin-in ’ere
fowl won’t come inshore, not a bit on it. Jest hiar how n-siless
they are hollerin’; I’ve heefd nn father speak ol the -.mie tiling
ar^r a stomi. There’s a bodj o’ some sort out o\ei the h.ir wants
to come in. .An' the fowl knows tt’s out there, the\’\e sei n it, an'
they won't settle till it comes ashore. It it don’t, Shoi eland’-,
lights will he seen agin, lookin’ tor it all along torcshorc.

The lights were sdid to be seen usually o\er a treacherous
rotten swamp which lay just above high-water mark, anti the.
belief was that tfic corpse cantlles were borne by the souls of
those who*had been drow ned at sea and came ashore to hutit
for a spot of dry ground, there to indicate Ui the li\ing that
they wished their bones to lx? laid when their bodies were
washed. ashore. If only the smallest remnant of a body couKl
be fortnd and given Christian burial, the ghtist would be laid
and the corpse candles put out. That belief still holds gooil
today on Romney* Marsh, round about the Reculvers, on
Sheppey and on JJvxale, and on the lonely marslics of the
Es^x^coasi.

An ofd f^herman-gunner friend of mine, living now in that
out-of-the-world village of Tollesbury at the mouth of the

i66

THE GHOSTLY FOWLER

^Mackwaler, a man who has sailed the Seven Seas sail and

has fotvled all hi^life on his native mud-ilats, refusej anjr
longer to j^o to evening flight oi^the lonely spit kjiown as the
r^aas hnci, b<K:ause,*lic swears to me, that there walks at
hand, thP ghogt of an old fiend of both of us,
a great gentlemali-gunner, who lies L tried in Tollesbury
churchyard. ^

Another native of ruUesbury^ Mr. JF.^Garrod, who lives
now fn Wulwj^jp Garden City, sends n1fe*in a letter, a whole
l)evy of Tollesbury ghosts.

There was [he writes] supposed t(f have been a White Lady
who walked in the road at tiie end of the drive to Gorwell Hall,
w here she is jniid lo» h^e had her throat cut^ Another place
supposetl to be haunted is the Monk’s Hoi^se. It is said to have
a tunnel Je<iding to Tollesbury Churfh, but it probably stands
f)n Tlu MU )i :in oldt. house. Tlie old Workhouse was another
haunted place. *d'hese were a row’ pf^old, weather-boarded cottages
down North Road, pulled down some years ago As children we
always used to run past these at night, for the ghost there used to
sinasli the crock and throw things about.

Another queer story current w^hen I w'as a boy^ was tFiarat
certain liiiies in the year the ghost of a white rabbit could be seV«:
in the churchyard. There are other house^in the village supposed
to he haunted, hut these were the sort of common talk.

(h)ing on to witches [he writes^, this is^rath.' a delicate
Mihject, although interesting, because in my young lays there
were at least tour people who were supposed to be w’itches, so you
can imagine there are still sonu: of their relatives ah.ef

'The best storv, I think, vva.s of a fisherman whose mother was
saiil to he a witch. One da\ he was out dredging (or “drudging”
as they sav) hir oysters. He kept shooting his dredge, and each
time he hauled it in, he could see that it had been c:; its back.
About the foui til time ^e was so enraged, that he swore and curke3
about his old mother for bewitching him# Hc*picked the dredge
up, aiid tore the “rigging” (this is the net part) to pieces^Nyith his
teeth, and threw' it down on the deck v ‘*h such ^pree that^t
bounced up and w’cnt dtivvn the cabvi hatch.

167

OK WILLS-O r1|ME-Wl8P AND CORPSE CANDLES

tlw thiRf W that tiy wouid, ke could not m 4
S|i|«tii^mdli«>idl0cOtitwith«coMdB»dandbanni«r as
M WW diyt J»elbr* tboj^csmcd hadwawa aboard wnackh
Indiimtalfy tide roan uacd to go «v«y Sunday to Chapel laiih *
bit Btbfo under htaann.

otber threoadtcbeiiuidudcd a iravciting gipvy and two ItK-al
women. 1 waayk>tbidd|pt by my aunt to ^en look at the housi
where on; Af them lirra. I |^a\e known people to pot a piece ot
thdr toenail and ae|ei*{ii of hair fiRmdhe person s»ho had cast .i
spell on them, into th« hr«f whilst at tAb aamc uiue thV |>»k*r u,ts
put in and lifted whemt waSaTcd hot 'ITiU the\ trailed ■‘brarKlmi.'
the wilch" and Iji^rakinK tlic spdl.

’I hrv swore )ou coutd*see the marks on the witcht|t> 1 >'hJ\ .iltet
this perfomurK-e.

My corrcspifuicru ends by salMni;, “I hojx* you will b(
ilde to nuke aomcthini' of this Scriven” here •he i^^ts .i
channinp, but alas ol»solclc, old Knulisb w»inl ‘but an\-
thing I can do to help yotr\tith the Uiok, will Ik* a pleasurt
if anjr use."

Such beliefs, scotled att>y pscudo-scicntilic minds, are too
deep-»rootcd for the countryman tf) lunore. tf»o intcresiintr t"

lost. Or? the other hand, many of the country liehefs in
ghostly lights and hanntings, particularly on the coast, were
either skirted or fostered by smugglers, as an admirabh
moans of keeping other jA'ople s noses out of their rnirlnigh'
business, inierc was little or no deliberate “wrecking" on tin
Fiast coast„of the sort which made the Cornish, Devon, and
irish coasts notorious, because there are no rocks on which
you can "reck a ship, and any vessel which gries ashore, gen-
erally«doe8 so a long way from land, either on a sandbank or
a mud-flat. On the other hand, smuggling was rampant, and
still* goes on, to a certain extent, to this day. 'I’hc deserted
and tortuous cous^ak creeks of the Kent and Kssex shores,
where^ nowadays, yoii may walk for a week without seeing .i
cxiastguard^arc ideal for the purpose.

A good picture of what* conditions were like a hundred

i68

“she suckled young jbj’ps”

yftars ago, in the koohford hundred of l^ssex, whiclftncludes
the deflate islancJl of Foulness, P*otton, Wallasea, Ru^I^,
Ilavengore, and New*England,*i8 given by Philipk Benton, of
Wakering’ ffalh who writing in 1868 says:

With respect tosth^ Clergy, it is notorious the majority, for,more
than two centuries, were noted for their jncimj^ence, their vices,
and shameful ncglc^ of their dutj^. At the perioc? to which we
are ^ow alluding, in tlrc twenty-seven ^a&hes there were not
above three flf five resident beneficSd n»ea, and those upon the
poorest Living^, whilst the Curates hjd chargp of three, ^four, or
f\en five churches. Their stijfends were shameful, and their
charactersdiad little to recommend them.

Within the prewnt century, taking some half-dozen contiguous
parishes we gattier, principally from records, thA one Vicar S.
vs ho dall.>ivu 11 f.anninp and made a^ranSrv' of the parsonage,
used to dfive his pigs to Rochford Market, dressed in a blue frock-
coat, red comfprter, and velveteen breeches, and to stop at The

I'liree Ashes to drink on his way.

He once carri^'J on this dialogue in Church, tapping the£lerk
on his shouldei ’.’icar, “Is my boy Jack in Church?” Clerk, ‘No.”
Vicar, after a time, ‘‘Is ray boy, etc., etc.?” “Confound it, I sR^P t
h.l^'c a cherr}' on my tree when I get back. ...

It may be easily supposed at this period that superstiUon
leigned supreme over weak and credulous minds, when Ae school-
master had made little or no progress, and tl|^t beli«^r».n ghost-
seeing and witchcraft was prevalent amongst all c. =es,- and
incredible stories with a perfect belief in their truth arft told about

haunted houses and lanes.

Harriott, another local historian, relates how a poor.elderly
woman waited upon him. complaining that her neigl^ours
accused her of being a witch, and that she had tents in her
armpits with which she suckled young imps, and requestmg
him to examine her. and certify if it ^^igrf to or not. Many

lanes had their “black dog”. . r * ,«'o

Rochford Hall, the old Essex hv of Anqp
family, a hundred and seventy 5*ears ago had a verj' lively

169

ON VVILLS-O’-THE-VVISP AND CORPSE CANDLES

ghost. In a letter written by the kcv. Nicholas Griffinhooft,
/ectqf of VVoodhani Mortimer, in August he sa^:*

The Rochford Hall Ghost grows more rude every day^ Ik*
now amuses him^<;lf with throwiog the \K)ots and snoes at the
men’s heads. Mr., Wrighjt was at«Rochford tjie week belore last,
and sent in a grijat l^urr\' for Mr. Codd and me to come to exorcise
this riotousKIhost, but! was iinluckilv in ’H)wn.

Writin^T again in oaptember, he sajis:

The ghost still continues to molest the good K)lks at Rochford
Hall, but he wiU^not dare to make his appearance this week, as a
large body of men, women, and chikiren are set of! j^ir Rochford
Hall on Wednesday next, Mr. antf Mrs. (’odd and their dauirhler
Fanny; Mr. *jird Mrs. Williams, of Tialrfon; *\!r. and Mr.^s. (irill
and their daughter .Sofev, are to ioftn the cavalcade, but the duel
business of this expedition is to eatrfruit of all kind>n as there is
great plenty of it there; we propose stajint: two or three davs, arul
1 daresay the ghost will rvmain very quiet all the time we are
tht;j;e.

For some years I rented the shooting on I’otton island and
later bn Wallasea Island, both near Rochford, and I heard at
hand many stories and beliefs in witches and wise men
The little village -of Canewdon, perched on an upland o\t r-
l<x)kmg the salt-water estuary of the Crouch was, within,
living memory, S very n?st of witches. ’The butcher’s wife
and the parson’s wife were said to l>e two of tlu-m. Witch
Hart was yne of the most famous. It is said of her that slic
«tole one of the church bells oilt of Canewdon Church and
sailed <;lown the Crouch in it. .Another poor old la<l\ at
Fambridgc, a little higher up the river, suspected of heini; a
w’itch, was taken out in a boat, her thum!)s and toes tieil
together and she was then “hulled overlward’’ into salt water,
to see if she ,^0*114 sink or float. Bui fo'- the intervention of
one o^ two stout-hearted people, who, defying the, witeh-
hwnters* hq^iled her ‘aboard their boat, she would undoubtedly
have lx;en drowned.

170

THE DEVIL ON FOULNESS

•

My old friend, thcflate Goodchil^, a splendid type of
I'^sse.t ^eonian, wflf) lived at East^Horndon Hall.unty hi5
death in 1.952, owned*, the whdie of Wallasea Island within
recent years. •He often told me that Devil’s House, a
ramshackle farmhouse "at tl^e far end cjf'the island, whose
bedroom window^ paered over the sea-\ ’all towards ths flat
and almost treeless wastes of Foulnes# Islancf, wgs supposed
to be haunted by the De* il.

“Sdtne nig^,” Will*said, “the, catflc in the stockyards
seem to mad. "^rhey stamped^ about as though the Devil
were after them. And my old»cha^ says fhat lie is there,
stirring them up with his fork!’’

It is certainly true that ofie night in 1938 a mob of cattle
which had bcen'rounfle^T up in the stockyard, charged the
gates, knocked them flat and stampeded wldly all over the
marsh. Ir great tidal flood of 1953, the whole of Wallasea*
Island was flooded, some of it thffteen feet below salt water,
and the remains of Devil’s HouSfe or Tile Barn and other
farmhouses, were levelled flat by the battering of the \\pves.

Perhaps ihr., is as well, for Alfr^ Herbert Martin, an,old
farm .labourer who has worked on. the islands for over forty
\ ears told me, only a few years ago, that when he and another
labourer were sleeping upstairs in DevH’s House, the Devil
t ame after them in person. Here is the story in Alfred’s ow’n
w ords:

Same as that owd Davvle’s house. I know’d that well tharty
Near agoo. An owd thatched 4)lace Vith a rare gi -t owd barn —
siitHn’ lonelv, I tell ycr. I bided a week there. One night my
male found hissclf hulled out o’ bed an’ down the stairs. He
never know’d what done it. That owd davvle wore strong as a

boss. ^

'few nights artervard he rowed over to Foulness Island across
the creek. He come back late in the moonlight, 'bright as day that
VN ore.

“Alf,” he say to me, “what do you -eckon I seed^vk-.. i w4s
a-rowin’ acrost the crick? I secd«that owd M«s. Smith, owd

171

ON WILLS-a’-fTHE-WlSP AND CORPSE CANpLES

Mothel"' Redcap, k*pm Foulness, cornin’ •'acrost the water ot a
wwden hurdle in the moonlight. She dedn h. hev no oars; hut she
travelled game as i{ she was 'n a boat.* She’s the headest witch
about these parts. You look out, bor! She’s on 'this island
somewhere now.”

An, yu believe ftie, sir, whefi we looked in the barn next
mornin’ there was -that owd witch curleb up in the straw like a
cat! She dome in the house, ’cause we haW her son workin’ along
wi’ us, an’ I mind her well, settiu’ the fire, peelin' pertaters,
nippir’ her owd lips tergither, an’ a-mumblin’- ‘‘Holly, Holl) '
Brolly, Brolly! Redcap! Bopny, Bonny!”

Bldst, boy, slje scat me! There was several witches them days,
hut that owd Mother Redcap was the headest one o’ the lot. 1 got
out o’ Davvle’s House suflin’ quicit arter that.

Well, that is Alfred’s story, and, wagging the gold earrings
in his ears, and puffing Niggerh(?ad smoke into nty fac'., he
assured me with the utmost solemnity; “'I’hass a true piece,
master. True as I set here*. An’ if that ain't true, may th'owd
Daw.'le fly a\Vay with me. I on’y hope th’owd humhug had tu
swim for it the night the tide hruk in! ”

-After such a declaration of faith, who are we to cavil?